On the 24th of March the doors were being flung open to the new Top Level Domain (TLD)
.tel - meaning that there was going to be the equivalent of a gold-rush
for all important domains. So, armed with a credit card I rushed in to see what franchise domains were still available and was
not at all surprised to see most had been taken.
However I did manage to get the following 3.
franchisor.tel
franchiseopportunities.tel
ifranchise.tel
Now - whilst looking I noticed franchising.tel had been sold and out of
curiosity I took a look to see who owned it; and as I thought, it was
already up for sale by it's new owner.
For those who do not know much about the domaining business - What
happens is people bulk buy what they think are catchy or industry
specific domain names then resell them at extortionate prices. The
equivilent of ticket touting. Alternativly they buy a small handful of
one word domain names they know are important to industry and sit on them till mega corporations come along and buy them.
So - what I did next was contact Telnic.org and the owner of franchising.tel.
I asked Telnic why in this day and age it was still allowed for people
to buy up important domains and render them inactive until someone
stump up large sums of money for them, sometimes for as long as ten
years, and I was surprised at their reply.
Quote
"We believe that usage and popularity of this format will drive
significant interest and this is perhaps why at a cost of upwards of
$10 for one year, individuals are looking at the reseller model for
.tel domains as a wise investment."
In other words, they are happy at people doing this. Rendering domains
dormant until someone comes up with the cash to buy them and in the
meantime making a mockery of their system. This tells me that Telnic
are more interested in making a profit than the reputation and service
of the new .tel TLD.
Quote
"I would suggest that if you are interested in it, you contact them
directly as you may be surprised at the price you might be able to
secure it for. There is no pricing structure for valuation of .tel
domains at present within the domainer community, so you may be able to
secure it at a price of your asking."
So I did.
Reply from current owner of franchisor.tel who recently purchased the domain for around $10
Quote
"The selling price is 200,000 €. Hope you are still interested."
200,000 Euros, yes you read it right folks. This morning he bought it for $10 and now wants to sell it for 200,000 Euros.
So of course I let Justin from Telnic know that this was in no way what I considered "reasonable" as he mentioned.
In comes Justin with a whole whirlwind of great replies, all of which
tell me that as a company and registered top level domain provider,
they do not care.
Quote
"Do you have an issue in creating value from an investment then selling it on?"
No of course I do not have an issue with someone "creating value"
however creating value is not what this is, it is a system that is open
to abuse and is devaluing the worth of the new .tel top level domain.
If someone builds a website from scratch and sells it on as a fully
developed and profitable site then that is "creating value" However
this is simply grabbing a bargain. I cannot blame the guy from doing
it but I can blame Telnic.org for allowing it to happen.
Jason carries on with his email, statements and general replies.
Quote
"You are obvious frustrated in missing an opportunity in securing a
valuable domain name and new marketing solution for your business and
feel that you need to blame someone for it. If you feel that someone
should be someone from Telnic, feel free to put me in that position."
I was surprised by this response because it goes down to a personal
level. Of course I would have bought the franchising.tel domain name,
as I would have for franchise.tel or franchises.tel but my frustration
was borne through the fact that it had been bought for resale meaning
it would likely be inactive for years to come, rendering the domain
pointless and the new TLD devalued.
This of course is not just in the franchising industry but it all
industries. It is too early to say how many important industry
specific domains names have been bought by domainers but a quick search
shows the following for sale.
http://houses.tel/
http://radio.tel/
http://newspaper.tel/
http://currency.tel/
http://franchising.tel/
http://clothes.tel/
http://television.tel/
There are many more of course but most have not been made live yet so
it is difficult to say just how many. I am guessing around 80-90% will
be up or resale though for one word domain names.
In comes Justin again
Quote
"I am sorry that you feel that people should not create an ecosystem -
whether through developing applications on the .tel through the open
source code and release of free APIs that we've developed and put out
there on dev.telnic.org, or through the ability for anyone to own a
premium name domain which doesn't have a trademark associated with it -
in order to deliver value and revenue to people in a time of economic
hardship which does NO HARM whatsoever to others."
(* scored out the above as it was irrelevant and was not part of our discussions, why he thought to say that I have no idea.)
I feel that somewhere Justin has either misunderstood me or is simply not willing to accept what I am saying.
Let me make my points clear.
1. I do not blame people for buying something which they think they can sell on at a profit.
2. I believe that by doing this that top level domains get devalued as
the domains sit dormant for years until a large company finally
succumbs and purchases it.
3. There has been continued debate over the past 5 years about the
"domain rush" on new TLD's, Cyber Squatters and Domainers. I believe
that Telnic has done little to address these issues.
4. In most cases domains have been bought up by companies and not
individuals, these companies will sit on the domains until hell freezes
over or someone pays extrordinary sums of money for them.
To their credit they did open up their system early to those companies
wishing to register their corresponding trademarked domain. BT could
register theirs, Google theirs etc.
Perhaps in that time they could have also offered reviewed domain
applications so that people had to show significant need for the domain
and prove they were to use it. This would have countered the many
thousands of domain names bought and now likely to remain inactive for
years to come.
Justin also mentioned that for a limited period of time you could register a domain name for $300 and that this was well publicized. I would like to point out that despite reading dozens of news articles every day that I at no point read this anywhere.
To be continued......