Warning for Sedo sellers of .ca domains

[whitebark]

Okay here's a question - what onus does a seller of .ca domain have to ensure that the buyer is indeed Canadian/meets CIRA residency requirements?

[msn]

We have a clause in our contracts to the effect that the purchaser or lessee warrants they are qualified, and we demand identification with the payment.

If you do not do it you can lose your registrations at CIRA apparently.

[6sons]

Since companies like Markmonitor International Canada Ltd. only exist to hold registrations, they have very low input costs - mainly invoices from Webnames.ca - and no real invoices to end-users since they bill from the U.S. parent to their customers. This means any VAT that Markmonitor International Canada Ltd. would be liable to pay would not have offsets to reduce the amount due. The result would see higher costs for its parent company and the customers of the parent company, so perhaps it is easier for them to avoid the VAT as they appear to do now.

Our deal that I refer to was with one the largest multi-nationals. Furthermore, we have also dealt with Mark Monitor Canada which appears to be an Hst registrant. At least we charged a company that fronted for them the gst.

[msn]

Our deal that I refer to was with one the largest multi-nationals. Furthermore, we have also dealt with Mark Monitor Canada which _is_ an Hst registrant.

They may want to book their deals over the U.S. to avoid the higher input costs while claiming HST on the invoices from Webnames.ca, but I have yet to see them actually do a purchase officially through the Canadian subsidiary. That would be a surprise for some folks here in this forum.

If you have some kind of proof of payment from Markmonitor International Canada I would really like to see it!

[whitebark]

If you do not do it you can lose your registrations at CIRA apparently.

So we work to enforce CIRA regulations without any financial compensation and if we don't they will punish us by removing our domains. I don't remember that in the fine print...

Heck that gets even better when CIRA themselves refuse to police the registrants! I've got some American yahoos constantly ripping off my content and posting it on .ca domains that are the singular, plural or hyphened copy of my websites. I've called them on the phone and they readily admit they are not Canadian or have any presence here (that's their reasoning to believe that any court in Canada cannot touch them) - told that to CIRA and they have done nothing. Meanwhile google pulled their adsense account, CJ.com stopped putting ads on their site and two different webhosts have shut down their servers for their blatant content theft.

CIRA - as useful as tits on a fish.

[6sons]

My post was ammended prior to your post. I clarified to say that MM had a front media company negotiate who referred to them as "their client". Gst was specified complete with amount and reg number and charged in the transaction. Presumably "the client" are the ones who sent the money to escrow.com and MM received the domain transfer. Thats why I stated that they "appear to be" a rant. I cant know for sure. I just know that they willingly paid gst in the amount of $1375 USD. So they must have a fair amount of money to throw around if this amount alone is not worth being a rant for. Anyway, I jumped in to this post merely to help out with your sedo situation not so much with our MM experience but our US parent - Canadian subsiduary sale. If it is of no help to you then just forget about it.

[msn]

My post was ammended prior to your post. I clarified to say that MM had a front media company negotiate who referred to them as "their client". Gst was specified complete with amount and reg number and charged in the transaction. Presumably "the client" are the ones who sent the money to escrow.com and MM received the domain transfer. Thats why I stated that they "appear to be" a rant. I cant know for sure. I just know that they willingly paid gst in the amount of $1375 USD. So they must have a fair amount of money to throw around if this amount alone is not worth being a rant for. Anyway, I jumped in to this post merely to help out with your sedo situation not so much with our MM experience but our US parent - Canadian subsiduary sale. If it is of no help to you then just forget about it.

Hey, do not take it the wrong way! I think the more that information is out in the open about how these outfits are operating the better it is for all of us.

A good example is how Register.com uses the 'I am a student' approach whereas Markmonitor uses a series of e-mail addresses for 'media companies' which do not exist. If either one of them acted honestly we would like have more trust of the corporate domain buyers than the situation right now. If anything, some of the lowest and sleaziest tactics are courtesy of these sorts of companies.