Domainers have a bad reputation
Jul 8th, 2008 by Richard
There is a lively discussion going on at Rick Latona’s blog this week about domain’s being sold and what the buyers do with them.
Rick makes an interesting observation:
Then, of course, there are those names you sell which are now dead links or even better, they still point at your name servers! This is much more common than one would think.
And he is right, this is much more common than you would think. I can tell you that in the web hosting business, people leave their domains pointed to the hosting company DNS all the time, too. I expect that Rick’s position - like our web hosting policies at Secure Hosting - is to remove the DNS entries and notify the domain owners that they should point their domain to new DNS.
But there are some disturbing comments by readers of Rick’s post where people are saying that they take advantage of the domain owners oversight and they are still parking the domains and making money off them even after they sold them.
This is just plain immoral. I bet the readers making these comments are the same sort of people who would find a lost wallet on the street, take the cash out of it and throw the wallet, ID’s credit cards etc into a garbage can and not think twice about it.
It’s no wonder that domainers get a bad reputation !!
Hi Richard,
I really like your blog, you’ve offered some really great advice and tips and I think it’s a great benefit to the community. Yet, I have to take issue with you equating parking revenues from old domains with stealing peoples cash and throwing away their IDs. These actions aren’t even in the same ballpark. The former is I agree, unethical but more probably simply misguided. The latter is immoral. Also illegal.
I also do not agree that this practice gives domainers a bad name. Cybersquatting, trademark infringement and outright extortion gives domainers a bad name and we should all be against it.
There are many accepted practices that are far bigger deals and far worse for all of us. Selling dropped names back to the original owner at inflated prices comes to mind, warehousing dropped customer domains by registrars and front running registrations are others.
By definition, domain buyers who don’t change their nameservers probably have no idea parking revenues are being generated at all. Even though I agree the name should be deleted from the parking account, it does not follow that this gives domainers a bad name. I’ve never heard anyone complain about this. In fact, the only time I’ve ever seen it mentioned is the current discussion on Rick’s blog and this blog post here.
Maybe this issue will gain more traction. Going forward I urge domainers to delete sold names from their accounts. They’re not yours anymore. Contact the new owners and offer them web hosting or something.
But calling people names isn’t nice either. Unless they deserve it. In this case, I’m not so sure they deserve to be accused of immorality on the scale of throwing away someone’s wallet.
@Germ
I’d like to highlight the following part of your comment on Rick’s blog:
This kind of behavior is dishonest !!
And then I asked if anyone thought this was wrong.
(Taking quotes out of context is also considered dishonest.)
In the same post I state “I’m thinking the best practice is to cut all ties…” and also “I’ve sometimes had a hard time adding new names I bought to my parking accounts because the seller never deleted them from the same company.”
I was trying to bring to light the fact that this behavior should probably be curbed by highlighting my own indiscretions and the problems I’ve run into when others have done the same. Honestly, when I read your post I didn’t think you were referring to my comment since that comment included the cons involved that some others may not have thought about.
But look, I concede the point that it shouldn’t be done. I think I’ve made that clear. I would gladly forward any earnings gained to the current owners except that they were negligible in any case. Which is just one more reason, it’s not worth it, even to those who don’t give a fig about propriety.
I think it’s good that this issue is being discussed. Domainers, as in all industries, must be careful to not only behave in within the rules but to also stay away from the appearance of improper or unethical behavior.
Keep up the good work. Like I said, I like your blog. I just had to take issue with the wallet comment.
@Germ,
Thank you for the positive comments about the blog!
This DNS issue is a bigger problem that it may seem. I see a lot of these kind of things happen on the web hosting side of things, with the problem party being a domainer, other hosting companies and even registrars. Most small business owners really have no idea how to manage their domain. They let their hosting company be listed as the owner, their SEO company etc. It becomes a real mess.
It really bugs me to see dishonest behavior, hence my strong opinion on the subject.
Regards.
I completely understand strong opinions.
(My friends and family can attest to that!)
If this was a gray area for anyone before I hope this discourse sends the signal that it’s not any longer. I’m currently updating my privacy policy and sales contract to address this issue specifically and have decided to contact every domain owner that doesn’t update their nameservers in a timely fashion. If nothing else, I may convert some into hosting customers. I strongly urge any others to do the same. It’s only right.
Even though your example clearly is an oversight by the buyer, I think it would be a matter of courtesy and professionalism if the seller would at least try to remind the buyer to change the dns. That being said, how often you remind the buyer, is still up to you.
Unfortunately this seems to happen all the time and not only in the case were people buy domains, but worse, where they win domains by means of a dispute.
I’ve heard many stories in the past where lawyers wrangle control of a domain only to never actually change the nameservers to point to their clients. Most likely this part is too technical for them, they probably in many cases barely manage to verify the changed owner information via the whois.