DropCatch.com Giving Some Auction Refunds

Elliot Silver
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15

A friend of mine told me about an email he received from DropCatch.com yesterday informing him of a refund that he is being given because of “bidding activity from users that were later suspended for non-payment might have affected the final price.”

There is an active thread on NamePros about the topic of non-paying bidders on DropCatch.com. The founders of DropCatch, Andrew Reberry and Jeff Reberry of TurnCommerce, addressed members’ concerns about non-paying bidders and the alleged irregular bidding activity in the NamePros thread. Andrew and Jeff also promised to investigate this issue, and it looks like they are taking action based on their findings. The objective was to identify what went wrong, make bidders whole, and improve the platform for the future to restore trust.

In the email sent to my friend, DropCatch referenced a blog post the company published in conjunction with the email. The blog post has additional information about the situation, what the company is doing to remedy it, and a go-forward plan to reduce the problem of non-paying bidders on the platform.

Here’s what the company said about the number of affected auctions and how bidders will be made whole:

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Emoji Auction on NameJet

Elliot Silver
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5

When I was taking care of my backorders on NameJet last night, I noticed a banner for an Emoji domain name auction. It looks like there are somewhere around 150+/- Emoji .WS domain names coming up for auction between 5 days and three weeks from now.

So far, it looks like there are quite a few bids for the upcoming auctions. Many of the domain names with bids also have reserve prices that have not yet been met. It looks like 13 of the auctions with bids do not have a reserve price and will sell (assuming the high bidder continues through to the auction).

Emoji domain names seem to be somewhat popular, at least amongst domain investors. Back in September, I reported that the ☯.com domain name (yin yang Emoji) was sold for $11,201. Vice News recently had a news segment with Page Howe covering Emoji domain names as well. Aside from

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NamesCon 2018 Auctions Up on NameJet

Elliot Silver
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4

The NameJet live and silent domain name auctions are starting to take shape on NameJet. If you visit NameJet from now until the end of February (give or take), you can see the “NamesCon” link in the top menu. Clicking that will take you to the current list of domain names that have been entered into the auction.

At this point, it is unclear what domain names will be included in the live auction and what domain names will only be in the silent auction, but it is probably fairly clear which domain names are the best of the bunch right now. Knowing how this works, I am pretty sure this is only a preliminary list, and more domain names will be added to the auction as we get closer.

In my opinion, 10 of the best names include the following domain names, as of the time of publication:

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Gradient.com Bought by Founder of Google’s Gradient Ventures

Elliot Silver
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5

The Gradient.com domain name was sold in an expiry auction at GoDaddy Auctions last week. GoDaddy Aftermarket VP Paul Nicks told me that the $125,001 sale of Gradient.com set a GoDaddy Auctions record for the largest sale on its auction platform.

This morning, the Whois record updated, and the new registrant is listed as Anna Patterson. Although there is no organization listed in the Whois record, a Google search showed me that Patterson is the Founder and Managing Partner at Gradient Ventures. According to Crunchbase, “Gradient Ventures is Google’s new AI-focused venture fund – investing in and connecting early stage startups with Google’s resources, innovation, and technical leadership in artificial intelligence.” Gradient Ventures was founded earlier this year. I presume the domain name acquisition was related on behalf of the venture fund, despite the Whois record bearing Patterson’s name.

After the auction closed, some people expressed doubt about whether or not the sale would close. Because of the way GoDaddy Auctions works, domain registrants have some additional time to

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NameJet Now Tells You if Auctions Are Expiry or Private Lister

Elliot Silver
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3

NameJet made a step towards more transparency in the last day or so when it introduced a new field on auctions called “Domain Type.” From what I can see, there appear to be three options: Expiry, Direct Lister, and Pending Delete. These fields are visible when an auction is in pre-release status as well as when an auction is live.

I think this is helpful and makes auctions more transparent. Before NameJet added this field, bidders would only know if an auction was via direct lister if the auction was public, if it had a reserve price, or by performing a Whois search and possibly using the Whois history tool at DomainTools. This will make it more clear from the outset.

I have been bidding much less on

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GoDaddy Changes Domain Name Expiry Process

Elliot Silver
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31

I want to share an email from my GoDaddy account representative about a change to the domain name expiry process. I believe this is going to have an impact on the auction process as well, and this should be good news for people who have called for changes at GoDaddy Auctions.

The renewal timeline will shift from 42 days to 30 days. From my perspective, it looks like this means that a domain name that is won at auction will no longer be permitted to be renewed by the former registrant. The email I received did not mention anything about the impact on auctions, so that is my interpretation of the news.

Here’s the email I received a moment ago:

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