closed Ever see a Registry do THIS before?!?

[NostraDomainus]

Ok, so I have been searching names for .xxx with the Whois of the ICM Registry (http://www.icmregistry.com/whois/), and yeah, I've read about the state of their roll-out thus far - but WOW - have you ever seen a Registry do this before:

For a number of days, a particular word(s) have been Available to hand-reg. with .xxx
The word(s) could be seen as 2 separate words or a compound word, gaining just over 10M and just under 10M Global Monthy Searches on Google Keyword Tool respectively.

So after realizing Yeah - go get this name! ...I come to find it is now:

"This name will be awarded after an auction. Click xxxauctions.pool.com for more information." (FYI... http://xxxauctions.pool.com/ does not even load atm)

I did not do any domaining yesterday, but the name was available all last week, and I am pretty sure right up to Christmas Eve, but as of this morning - the Grinch has Taken Christmas!!

All of a sudden, the name is now Not Available to rego and has been removed from the wild to the profiting of the ICM Registry and Pool!?!

Have you ever seen this maneuver before with a domain extension/registry? ...during a roll-out or otherwise? I haven't :S
How can I find out if this is allowable? Is this within ICANN Policy and/or ICM Registry Policy?
Is there someone I can report this too?
Is this legal?
Or, as per usual, am I just SOL?

 

[DomainsInc]

domains ordered during sunrise or landrush with more than one applicant went to pool's .xxx closed auction site. these domains should have never showed as available.

 

[NostraDomainus]

Well, what made me think this was different was I saw an example like you describe with Surf. xxx, when it showed as Available @ the Registry WHoIs, but not at either of 2 Registrars I tried to reg it at.

Conversely, this name showed it was Available @ the WhoIs AND at an independent Registrar, giving me the impression it was 'wild'. This was as of 2 days ago - now it's Not Available @ the Registry nor elsewhere but pool.com

Just further evidence to the negative experiences others are having when dealing with this roll-out. Degrading the .xxx brand before even giving people a chance to buy-in and build it - cutting off it's nose spite it's face :S IMHO

 

[Raider]

Why would you want to register a domain that will only degrade in value?

 

[Poker]

.xxx

 

[EM @MAJ.com]

.rip

 

[draggar]

I'm surprised it took this long for "registries" to catch on - put all registrations up for auction. Sure, we saw it with other sunrise registration periods before but was this domain registration attempted after the period?

Clearly the biggest winner is the registry.

 

[EM @MAJ.com]

Another extension will show up, the domainers will jump to the sunrise and early registration, after few years ... poop! Only a few sales make it, but millions will never.

Happy New Year!