Ok someone refresh my memory....

[msn]

At least you did not get someone screaming at you about already owning a domain before they had a chance to register it.

[CanSpace]

Ok its been a long day and I cant find the answer so here is the story.

I am looking at buying a dot ca that also has a ab.ca ( provincial ) variant, for example I want to buy example.ca and it appears registered by one guy yet example.ab.ca is also registered by another person.

Any issues here, how did that happen and what are the pros/cons?

Thanks

Back in the pre-CIRA days, only very specific entities could get top-level .ca domains. More people were eligible for .province.ca domains, and so registered those instead.

Since CIRA's inception, restrictions for getting top-level .ca domains have been mostly lifted, and now nearly any Canadian can get them.

To protect existing .province.ca domain owners, people cannot register the top level .ca domain if an existing .province.ca domain exists - UNLESS the existing .province.ca domain holder(s) agree.

This type of registration is called a "conflicting" domain registration.

We've helped a number of customers through the process. It can be a bit tedious. The most difficult part of course is to get the existing .province.ca domain holders to agree. In many cases these 2nd level domains are incredibly old and it's difficult to get in touch with the owners. In fact in most cases we've dealt with, the .province.ca domain holders don't even have control of the admin email any more and need to submit an MCACE request to fix that. Of course they are usually reluctant to do so, because they have no real reason to do so other than to help the new registrant. Plus their registrar usually charges a good deal to submit the MCACE. To help, the new registrant usually offers to pay for this...

Anyway we'd be happy to help if you need assistance!