TBR Musings - September 29, 2021 (2.Viewing)

[notify]MapleDots[/notify] You are correct, a registrar must be registering a domain for "someone", they can't simply register the domain as a registrant for their own marketplace, held as a means to turn a profit at some later date. Domains that a registrar holds as registrant must be related to their business as registrar.

I've reached out to [notify]rlm[/notify] to talk about this.

richard.schreier said:

@rlm There are a couple things to clear up that may give you some insight.

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Nothing to clear up there, everything you said is precisely how I know TBR works, and I have no major qualms with how it works. Its the system we've been living with for many many years, we know and understand it, so I'm not looking to upset the apple cart so-to-speak.

The one thing I did not know was that for TBR domains, there is no addgrace period, nor a way for a registrar to get their fee back if their customer fails to pay. Of course not being a registrar - that doesn't affect me. To me, that would be more of a liability that a registrar accepts by not taking payment in advance, or not at least authorizing credit cards in advance for a certain amount. If you've placed the order, your credit card should be automatically charged on fulfillment of that order - not left up to the client to decide to pay or not. I know different registrars accept that risk in different ways (requiring payment or authorizations up front, or giving a limited line of credit to certain customers based on history, etc...)

And lastly, your assessment of domains bought outside of TBR is exactly the same interpretation I had, and thus why I suggested that those domains that WHC/Sibername did inadvertently register after TBR would best be deleted, rather than auctioned off, as that would avoid violating the rules. This had nothing to do with picking on WHC for anything here, I was just trying to steer them into making what I thought was the correct choice, i.e., deleting those domains they registered outside of TBR that had more than one bidder, then let the chips fall as they may again next week's TBR. This is me simply wanting to establish the correct precedent for all registrars to follow going forward - and for WHC to be that leader. I _do_not_ want a precedent to be set that a registrar could justify auctioning off non-tbr acquired domain names just like they do for tbr-acquired domains. Its as simple as that.

So thank you [notify]richard.schreier[/notify] for confirming that for everyone here.

[notify]rlm[/notify] all great comments. You need not worry about a precedent being set by what WHC has done. We consider what the "outcome" would have been and in this scenario the outcome is the same. WHC could have just as easily picked up the domains at the end of TBR, i.e. when there was no longer any activity but the window was still open, and the result would have been the same.

The registrar agreement would cover the behaviour you are describing under "bad faith" and certainly a registrar registering domains for the purpose of holding and waiting to have multiple interested parties in order to have an auction would indeed be in bad faith.

In this case, we would/do not consider what WHC has done as acting in bad faith.

richard.schreier said:

In this case, we would/do not consider what WHC has done as acting in bad faith.

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I don't think we would accuse WHC as having acted in bad faith, I think it is more a general concern and not directed at WHC. We understand the situation that happened at WHC and I think in the end we are just discussing registrar behavior in general.

richard.schreier said:

[notify]rlm[/notify] all great comments. You need not worry about a precedent being set by what WHC has done. We consider what the "outcome" would have been and in this scenario the outcome is the same. WHC could have just as easily picked up the domains at the end of TBR, i.e. when there was no longer any activity but the window was still open, and the result would have been the same.

The registrar agreement would cover the behaviour you are describing under "bad faith" and certainly a registrar registering domains for the purpose of holding and waiting to have multiple interested parties in order to have an auction would indeed be in bad faith.

In this case, we would/do not consider what WHC has done as acting in bad faith.

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Yeah, definitely no one thought they were acting in bad faith. And I'm happy that you'd take that approach, and have no issue with that. I was just strictly concerned about the possibility that a registrar (whc or otherwise) might make small leaps from auctioning off a domain they acquired in this situation, to auctioning off domains in other situations, to auctioning off domains any time they like. In any case, thanks for your insight.

The domains should be charged at standard registration rate.

Develop said:

The domains should be charged at standard registration rate.

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I do agree with that - since the domains weren't registered in a TBR session - they should be standard rate.