SOLD.ca CMI.ca - Sold $16,000 CAD (1.Viewing)

So let me get this straight....CMI was dropped in 2018. It was picked up by MYID? And kept by MYID? There was no auction?

How did this person buy this domain from MYID?

Maybe I’m reading too much into this but I don’t think there was a sale here...I think there’s some funny business being done in a CIRA dispute.
 
Let me get this straight.. there may have been funny business involving MyID - I'm incredibly shocked!
 
theinvestor said:
So let me get this straight....CMI was dropped in 2018. It was picked up by MYID? And kept by MYID? There was no auction?

How did this person buy this domain from MYID?

Maybe I’m reading too much into this but I don’t think there was a sale here...I think there’s some funny business being done in a CIRA dispute.
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Yes. The domain was grabbed in TBR by MyID in March 2018. I didn't place an order for it at MyID (was stubbornly trying not to use them). It should have presumably been auctioned off to some domain investor.

A few weeks later, algebra.ca dropped, and MyID was able to grab it too. Again, it should have been auctioned off to some domain investor.

Some months later, French Granny apparently negotiated to buy both Algebra and CMI at significant cost, for a math web site development project. The sale of CMI occurred on Jan 31, 2019 for $16,000. Nothing was mentioned about the date or price of the sale of Algebra.ca, but the CDRP Decision report states that both were purchased _FROM_ MyID. Of course we all know this isn't supposed to be possible since Registrars all agree to not warehouse domains for resale purposes as part of their registrar agreement. I suppose it is possible that MyID would argue that they acted as broker and not seller. This could be a terminology issue here, as people might say they bough a domain from Sedo rather than from Joe Blow _on_ the Sedo platform. Unfortunately the devil is in the details, which we'll never know.

In either case, French Granny has her two domains, but presumably got sidetracked while crocheting some new doilies and baking croissants. As such, the Canadian Math Institute (CMI) project that MyID quoted her a price of $305,000 to complete, never got up and running, not even with a free wordpress website. Apparently French Granny was savvy enough to acquire two valuable domain names from the black hole of MyID, but not savvy enough to get a web development quote from actual web developers. I mean, who asks a registrar that has barely updated their own website since 2001 to develop a website for them?

It is interesting to note that neither the original auction winner of cmi, nor the original auction winner of algebra (presuming they both were auctioned off), nor french granny, ever chose not to transfer the domain out of MyID to a mainstream registrar.

In any case, while this story _could_ be true, I'm every bit as skeptical as the panelists, and then some.

However, the upside of this is that despite the backstory, the decision was good for domain resellers. Just please don't be stupid enough to park valuable LLL domains with ads though, you're provoking a lawyer somewhere who is more than happy to bill $500/hr to file a complaint against you, regardless of the complaint's actual merit. Giving them any ammunition at all, is just not smart. That is the real lesson to learn here.

Now If I can just get Granny to buy MCI, it'll go nice with her CMI...
 
The registrar business in Canada is very difficult to be successful if your only focus is .CA domains. If you’re not a top hosting provider the only money that is left is in TBR. That’s how MYID is successful from my point of view.
 
Geez, I never knew the "Canadian retiree living overseas" domain market was so incredibly lucrative.

Looks like we've been ignoring a key resale sector all these years, while MyID clearly knows the game. What's next for them? The burgeoning "baby domain investor" area?
 
DomainRecap said:
Geez, I never knew the "Canadian retiree living overseas" domain market was so incredibly lucrative.

Looks like we've been ignoring a key resale sector all these years, while MyID clearly knows the game. What's next for them? The burgeoning "baby domain investor" area?
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HeHe.... you know MyId is never going to join this forum now right? *ROFL*
 
rlm said:
Of course we all know this isn't supposed to be possible since Registrars all agree to not warehouse domains for resale purposes as part of their registrar agreement.
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And if someone was doing it, this would incredibly lucrative, as any TBR domain only cost the registrar around $9 (or less, depending on volume), thereby making a $16,000 sale virtually all profit.

But there would be some telltale signs:

1) TBR auction prices would naturally be more expensive than other venues for a similar domain, as these would be run like a "reserve auction" where the "winning bid floor" would be decided beforehand and the TBR domain would only change hands if this number was met.

2) The registrar would have to set up some area to resell these domains under the guise of an open domain market. Otherwise these valuable domains would just sit, and it would also bring up potential issues if the domain "owner" were to negotiate openly with buyers. So you require an intermediary for this scheme to work.

3) These TBR domains would always remain under the strict control of the registrar and would never be transferred.

Not saying it's going on, but the above scenario would be the "smoking gun" in my opinion, especially if it's non-standard compared to how other TBR registrars run their ship.
 
DomainRecap said:
And if someone was doing it, this would incredibly lucrative, as any TBR domain only cost the registrar around $9 (or less, depending on volume), thereby making a $16,000 sale virtually all profit.
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Well, you can't forget about the current cash they would actually be losing from the TBR auction sale. So they would be choosing to forego the current value of cash from a wholesale price TBR auction now, for an unknown end-user type sale price in the future. So they would certainly be making that choice. But that is certainly easier to do (give up income for a bigger future payday), rather than paying out of pocket cash to acquire the domain like a regular investor would have to do. But that's a deal any business would take.

DomainRecap said:
But there would be some telltale signs:
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Lol, yes, all the signs are there.

Here's the problem. It's going to be virtually impossible to prove, and I don't think its wrong _IF_ its done properly.

Anyone that who is a beneficial owner of a registrar, is not explicitly forbidden from every owning other domain names. So if I own a registrar, as a separate incorporated business, that does not preclude me from having another separate incorporated business that buys/owns/sells/develops domain names. You couldn't do it all as a sole proprietorship though.

As long as Business A (the registrar) sells TBR auction domains to Business B (the reseller company) and cash changes hands, AND, Business B doesn't have access to their competitors bid prices via their relationship to Business A (i.e. collusion), then, this would be 100% fine.

However, no one in the business believes that is happening.

A possible solution would be to have TBR run as it currently does, but that CIRA (or an outsourced and audited 3rd party not allowed to be in the domain business) would run the auctions, collect the funds from the proceeds of TBR, and disburse them to the registrars in the form of a CREDIT to their CIRA account. This would mean that a domain registrar CANT be in business SOLELY for the purpose of TBR, they have to be an active registrar with real clients and domains (without customers, they could never use their credits up). Those registrars would then not have to pay CIRA their wholesale $9.50/domain when a customer registers/renews a domain name, it would simply be deducted from their credit.

THAT solution would clean up the registrar business model, forcing registrars to be REAL registrars, not just be a front for a domainer business, and TBR would return to being the little bonus/kickback it should be for registrars, not their entire business model. And it would eliminate the collusion that we all believe is happening between a registrar and its beneficial owner during TBR auctions.
 
rlm said:
A possible solution would be to have TBR run as it currently does, but that CIRA (or an outsourced and audited 3rd party not allowed to be in the domain business) would run the auctions, collect the funds from the proceeds of TBR, and disburse them to the registrars in the form of a CREDIT to their CIRA account.
Click to expand...

The problem is this would only clear up half the problem, and what about the issue of registrars that just keep expired domains rather than sending them to the TBR?

We all know this happens with expensive domains and there have been several high-profile cases of LL and LLLs that were followed right up until they were supposed to hit TBR, then miraculously these remained with the same registrar, switching accounts like there was a miracle last-minute "sale". :cool:

I'm betting it's that old retired lady in Europe, waiting til the last second to scoop it up.

That's the other side of this dirty coin and something that the CIRA doesn't seem ready or willing to tackle.
 
DomainRecap said:
That's the other side of this dirty coin and something that the CIRA doesn't seem ready or willing to tackle.
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When it happens, people absolutely need to take it to CIRA. They can't do anything about it if they can't prove its a problem.
 
rlm said:
When it happens, people absolutely need to take it to CIRA. They can't do anything about it if they can't prove its a problem.
Click to expand...

How about if they're not longer with us to complain?
 
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