The Little Country of Montenegro Got Lucky
A Top Level Domain (TLD) is a part of every URL that more or less designates its purpose or geographic location. Each country around the world has their own TLD, the United States has .us, Germany .de and so on. These geographical TLD's have value to companies who do business within their country but usually have less value outside of their country. Some TLD's take on a more global appeal; recently .tv was introduced which has obvious appeal to be used for television and video related websites. The beautiful country of Montenegro was fortunate enough to be given the TLD ".me". This TLD has global appeal to be the domain of choice for personalization for example; Lucky.me, hire.me or simply yourlastname.me.
Due to this the anticipation and excitement of marketers was extremely high and they were poised with business plans to purchase the best names and launch a .me business.
GoDaddy.com whose owner Bob Parsons is well known for using porn stars and sex symbols to market his company, aggressively negotiated with the country of Montenegro and won the rights to offer the .me domain names for registration in January 2008. GoDaddy.com is one of only three companies in the world who were given the rights to market and sell the .me domain name. To those who are not familiar with registering domain names, this simply means that GoDaddy.com is the website where anyone could search for a domain name, see if it is available for sale and purchase it. Once a domain name is purchased you can use it in conjunction with a web hosting service to create and promote a website.
The stage was set for a record breaking launch of a highly desirable TLD being offered through the world's largest domain name registrar GoDaddy.com. For 6 months GoDaddy.com marketed the .ME domain name as THE domain name to have for personalization. The possibilities were endless and as exciting as the pioneering days of the Internet.
On May 2 2008 according to the GoDaddy website quoted below the domain names were set to be sold in three distinct phases.
"When can I register .me domains?
Sunrise April 28, 2008 to May 20, 2008.
Open to entities that have a current trademark or service mark, registered or applied for prior to June 28, 2006, for the domain for which they are applying. The domain must be identical to the text or word elements of the trademark or service mark, and it must be nationally recognized within the country where it's registered.
Landrush May 6, 2008 to June 26, 2008.
Open to all, and no trademarks or service marks are required for domain applications.
Go Live July 17, 2008.
Open to all, and there are no restrictions."
But here is where the story gets interesting, not because of what GoDaddy was marketing, but what they were NOT marketing. It was no accident that few people knew that the country of Montenegro was withholding certain domain names from being registered.
There were two sets of lists of names that WOULD NOT BE AVAILABLE for registration.
From the domains.me website:
"A list of Reserved Names ( PDF, and text file) has been held back for government and registry use. These names are not available for registration by the public. This list was updated on April 15, 2008."
It makes good sense for a Government to protect their interests and not allow anyone to register names that have to do with their Government offices, landmarks and so on. That is mainly what is on this list.
The Second List:
" A list of Premium Names ( PDF, and text file) has been held back, and these names are not currently available for registration. The Registry plans to make these names available in manner(s) to be determined at a later time."
This second list of Premium Names is what has generated outrage among millions of Internet businesses and individuals who attempted to register .me names on July 17, 2008 which I will get to in a moment.
I have personally searched the GoDaddy.com website for days and have not found one link, nor one mention that premium names were being withheld from registration at any time, at any phase of for any reason, period. The only information that I have found was DEEP in the multipage legal speak of the GoDaddy.com domain name registration policy where one paragraph had the link below.
49. provisions specific to .me registration
You acknowledge and agree to obey, comply and be bound by any and all registry rules, policies and agreements, and any and all updates, revisision and modifications thereto, for this ccTLD, which may be found here.
You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless the .me Registry, its owners, subsidiaries, affiliates, subcontractors and agents, and the respective directors, officers, employees, affiliates and agents of each of them, from and against any and all claims, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses, including reasonable legal fees and expenses arising out of or relating to Your domain name registration or the use of any domain name registered in the TLD by or on Your behalf.
Revised: 6/9/2008 Copyright © 2000-2008 GoDaddy.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The page found by going to this link: http://www.domain.me/index.php?page=21 does not speak of, link to nor mention in any way the list of withheld domain names.
So there you have it, millions and millions of Internet entrepreneurs eagerly awaiting the 8 AM PDT, July 17, 2008 launch of the .me registrations, and GoDaddy.com knowing full well that virtually all of the highly lucrative domain names that they wanted to purchase were already gone, withheld and not available.
July 18, 2008 8:AM PDT Registration for .me domain names opens. Within minutes millions of consumers from around the world were searching for available domain names including myself. Frequently came back the search response - "domain name taken", and then after many fast searches a HIT! The domain name discovery.me is available and then quote.me and insure.me. I got a .me name! and then another! and another! All said and done I spent my full budget and purchased 22 domain names in the first half hour. GoDaddy accepted my payment, sent me a confirmation of payment and withdrew the funds from my bank account. I was more than pleased with myself.
Like my SEM brethren I was giddy, at peace, and excited about the companies I was about to create with my new .me names.
My thoughts of Internet fame and fortune lasted for about an hour when I received a single email from GoDaddy
The following domain name has failed to be registered:QUOTE.ME
Error: QUOTE.ME: cannot register - already registered
We will evaluate this error and retry the registration if appropriate. If we are unable to successfully register the domain name, your account will be credited accordingly.
Please allow one business day for the refund to be processed.
Please contact GoDaddy.com, Inc. if you need any further assistance: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/support.asp?prog_id=GoDaddy&isc=gdbb14
Sincerely, GoDaddy.com, Inc.
Soon after, I received another "Failed to register" email for another domain, then another and another, and slowly but surely about 2 hours after I had successfully found and paid for my domains they were taken away, all but one. I didn't dare register more domains as GoDaddy still had my money, and I didn't want to purchase another 22 domains and then have the first batch of 22 go through successfully. So there I was stuck in limbo, my money gone, my domains gone and fearful I would come out empty handed. And that is exactly what happened, as I write this 2 business days and 4 full days later, GoDaddy still has my money and I don't have my domain names.
It gets worse.
The domain name Discovery.me that was stated to be available and I successfully purchased is now up for auction for $75 at domains.me. As a matter of fact it was up for auction immediately. Insult to injury: I quickly find a whois for the .me domain and start searching for the owners of Discovery.me, but there is none, yet it is up for auction?. I find that one company seems to own everything, from domains with Adult terms to everyday nouns, verbs and adjectives, all the terms the Internet entrepreneurs were excited about registering. The company is called Premium Domains. Most all of their registrations have incomplete or inaccurate address information, a violation of the ICANN .ME and GoDaddy registration policy. Unfortunately although it is not confirmed, this company is the company which Montenegro uses to hold the list of Premium names noted above.
The Big Mistake
GoDaddy marketed the .me domains and hyped them for months and successfully kept the list of withheld names under wraps. If everyone knew that virtually all the desirable domain names were already taken, how much excitement and demand for .me would there be? Virtually none.
What was supposed to happen was that when the excited domain name speculator searched for the desirable name, it would come up as already registered, and they would go off with the thought of DARN somebody beat me to it and try another name. Ultimately they would only be able to register less desirable choices. GoDaddy would have successfully created a huge demand a rush for names, but only have sold lesser valuable names. The pulled off the bait and switch.
But that is not what happened. GoDaddy and Montenegro had a little technical mishap, the exact nature of the mishap is not fully understood but the result is. ALL the domain names that were supposed to be withheld, were not, not only were they available, but even AFTER they were sold to consumers like myself, they were sold again to others and again and again. Thousands and thousands of consumers successfully found and paid for the same domain such as hire.me, quote.me and insure.me. This is what precipitated the "Error already registered" emails and in my view was the first crack in the unraveling and exposing of the plot by GoDaddy to hide the list of premium domain names.
It is Monday morning July 21, 2008 approximately 8:30 AM it is a full 48 business hours after initial purchases and refunds are due to be credited back to purchasers of the .me domain names. But alas, it has not happened, I have not received a refund, the domains I paid for are not in my account and GoDaddy has assumedly hundreds of millions of dollars in their accounts illegally.
GoDaddy will certainly be faced with class action lawsuits. At minimum GoDaddy's reputation is now mud, they will never be trusted again to launch a new TLD and surely millions like me will rush to remove their existing domains out of GoDaddy's registration service. However, if the community of Internet entrepreneurs had their way Mr. Parsons would end up like his porn star spokespeople;
In the gutter, begging, forgive.me
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