.US Outrage

[hiOsilver]

In what appears to have been an unannounced drop, thousands of previously reserved .us domains were released for registration with little, if any, public notice by Neustar, the registry manager for .us.

We are talking about domains like:

Colorado.us
Connecticut.us
Hawaii.us
Kentucky.us
Nevada.us
NewMexico.us
WestVirginia.us
YubaCity.us
Annuity.us
Futures.us
Stockoption.us

These are names that were previously reserved and it is the first time that any of these names have been released. One individual, a DNF member, initially registered all of these and hundreds more.

I hesitate to point a finger at anyone, as I only know of a few details, but frankly, this deal stinks to high heaven.

The domain owner community should pursue this with the US Dept of Commerce. I plan to make a similar post on Rick's Board.

I have not attempted to contact Neustar yet.

Credit for breaking this story goes to Ron Jackson of DNJournal.com. See last Tuesday's Domain Sales column (still the current sales column until tonight).

 

[James]

According to http://www.neustar.us/reserved/index.html

End Dates for .US Reserve Names

September 30, 2004 Final day for accepting Local Name registrations.
October 15, 2004 Release Local Names from reserve.
Final day for accepting State and Indian Reservation registrations.

November 1, 2004 Release State and Indian Reservation Names from reserve.
November 15, 2004 Final day for Federal Names registrations.
December 15, 2004 Release Federal Names from reserve.

someone was watching closely...to bad it wasn't me

jim

 

[fini]

obviously someone knew; how else would they have managed to swoop in and register them? IMHO your only real complaint is that there wasn't enough notice and what ever IS enough notice???

The deal may 'stink' for people who failed to get the domains they want, but I can't see why a registrar particularly has to tell anyone anything before it launches a new product (which is, effectively, what it is)...

fini
P.S. no it wasn't me who registered them all before you all start wondering...

 

[James]

The deal may 'stink' for people who failed to get the domains they want, but I can't see why a registrar particularly has to tell anyone anything before it launches a new product (which is, effectively, what it is)...

fini
P.S. no it wasn't me who registered them all before you all start wondering...

I believe the registry did have the release dates posted on their site...

jim

 

[hiOsilver]

obviously someone knew; how else would they have managed to swoop in and register them? IMHO your only real complaint is that there wasn't enough notice and what ever IS enough notice???

The deal may 'stink' for people who failed to get the domains they want, but I can't see why a registrar particularly has to tell anyone anything before it launches a new product (which is, effectively, what it is)...

fini
P.S. no it wasn't me who registered them all before you all start wondering...

This is an issue of trust with the public's property. The US Dept of Commerce hired Neustar to manage the .us registry. Neustar reserved certain names, including all of the states, plus major cities (as in DenverCity.us), plus relevant generics. These either should have been help in perpetuity until some administration of the State of Hawaii or whatever finally decided to use the domain, or, if they were to be released, then this amounted to a new issue of domains.

Off the top of my head, I could see Hawaii.us being worth at least $1 million to the people of the State of Hawaii, and maybe more.

There is certainly the appearance of an inside deal here. The notice on the neustar website was really not there at all. According to Ron Jackson, month after month, the release notice would be incremented by a month, lulling those interested into believing that these domains would never be released.

For hundreds of these domains, collectively worth many millions of dollars to be directed to one person's hands with no notice is scandalous. Do you think that the US Dept of Commerce would agree to give this valuable property to a single person with no reasonable public notice? This has nothing to do with a few people feeling like that were left out.

 

[madcamel]

The notice on the neustar website was really not there at all. According to Ron Jackson, month after month, the release notice would be incremented by a month, lulling those interested into believing that these domains would never be released.

Are you refering to this ?
http://www.neustar.us/reserved

Accoring to this link :
December 15, 2004 Release Federal Names from reserve.

 

[hiOsilver]

Are you refering to this ?
http://www.neustar.us/reserved

Accoring to this link :
December 15, 2004 Release Federal Names from reserve.

Yes. That is the only notice that I know of. And, according to Ron Jackson, this notice has been there for a couple of years, with the release dates being updated month after month until he and others figured that the release would never happen. Even that is not really adequate notice for the release of such valuable property. How did you find that page?

 

[madcamel]

Google
(".us release reserved")

 

[hiOsilver]

Google
(".us release reserved")

Sorry, but being able to find something by searching at Google does not constitute public notice. I could think of many acceptable ways to notify the public, but this lame web page was not one of them.

 

[madcamel]

This definitely smells bad.

But I don't think neustar will do anything about it.

 

[fundraiser]

There is certainly the appearance of an inside deal here. The notice on the neustar website was really not there at all. According to Ron Jackson, month after month, the release notice would be incremented by a month, lulling those interested into believing that these domains would never be released.

For hundreds of these domains, collectively worth many millions of dollars to be directed to one person's hands with no notice is scandalous. Do you think that the US Dept of Commerce would agree to give this valuable property to a single person with no reasonable public notice? This has nothing to do with a few people feeling like that were left out.

What is outrageous is your accusation that there is the appearance of an inside deal.

I registered Washington.us, Illinois.us, Minnesota.us, RhodeIsland.us and a few lesser but nice names off of the list so "one person" is not quite accurate. The elaborate domain name acquisition tool I used was the human mind. I went to the home page of the registry and clicked the link to the reserve page and saw the release dates. I watched, waited, remained patient and then I hand-registered them at Enom. I missed a name I wanted when the first release occurred in November so I made a deal for it.

If you feel you've missed out on something, I suggest you do the same.

On a positive note, I do like your appraisal of the value of the names.

 

[David G]

According to important conversations I have had with some of the key players and what I personally have seen it appears some names like America.us (the best of the best) and other big ones dropped EARLY on Nov 16. Other key names like the state reserves dropped LATE on Dec 22 thought they were scheduled (according to the webpage I first read on Dec 22) to drop on Dec 15. I did visit the site several times on and before Dec 15 and did NOT locate the page with the schedule after much time on the site looking for it. I finally ran into the page on Dec 22 late night after most of the good names were gone earlier that day (about 7 hrs before my visit) and Nov 16 and oher dates too.

It seems one player and dnf member got hundreds possibly thousands of great ones, perhaps 95% or more of the really good ones, includig great acronyms like FDIC.us for example, and loads of others.

During a phone conversation with a key player it was said a so called private firm managed to reg most all of the names and then sold some of them to 2 other key players and kept the rest for himself. That is basically all I know.

I agree there should have been better public notice and also agree the schedule should have been easy to find and made more noticable and also the time tabe should have been adhered to and not done any early or late drops.

P.S. A mysterious oddity is why are so MANY of the great us names reg'd at a place called Blueberry Hill? I called Blueberry Hill and they said they do NOT grab us drops, only biz and info? It is also interesting Blueberry Hill was working with Neustar as a subcontractor a few yrs ago regarding the Kids domains according to a Google cache.

 

[Deleted member 4749]

In what appears to have been an unannounced drop, thousands of previously reserved .us domains were released for registration with little, if any, public notice by Neustar, the registry manager for .us.

We are talking about domains like:

Colorado.us
Connecticut.us
Hawaii.us
Kentucky.us
Nevada.us
NewMexico.us
WestVirginia.us
YubaCity.us
Annuity.us
Futures.us
Stockoption.us

These are names that were previously reserved and it is the first time that any of these names have been released. One individual, a DNF member, initially registered all of these and hundreds more.

I hesitate to point a finger at anyone, as I only know of a few details, but frankly, this deal stinks to high heaven.

The domain owner community should pursue this with the US Dept of Commerce. I plan to make a similar post on Rick's Board.

I have not attempted to contact Neustar yet.

Credit for breaking this story goes to Ron Jackson of DNJournal.com. See last Tuesday's Domain Sales column (still the current sales column until tonight).

Wot?!?!

 

[David G]

Jalous losers. Perhaps you don't know that I paid $25 000 for those names to dropcatcher that caught them. Losers like you should die out.

That sure was an amazing bargain price. Many of the individual names on your list you got from that private firm are easily worth $25000 each.

Why would he sell them at such a low price anyway?

I don't think anyone is really jealous but upset over the lack of good notice and not adhering to the schedules, either late or early dops dates which gave the private firm 95% of the names and millions of dollars in value.

 

[hiOsilver]

Jalous loser.
Perhaps you don't know that I paid $25 000 for those names to dropcatcher that caught them.

Get your facts right jackass and look at registration dates of annuity.us, futures.us and stockoption.us and look at the registrant of yubacity.us, washington.us, montana.us, illinois.us, virginislands.us and others.

Losers and liars like you should die out.

Well, Yakov, anyone with half a brain and the funds would pay $25,000 for Hawaii.us alone. It is probably worth 10 to 40 times that.

This has nothing to do with jealousy, it has to do with what appears to be the violation of a public trust by Neustar.

Yakov, the only thing I would accuse you of is bad manners, bad enough that you should be at least cautioned by DNF mods.

If you have some facts to offer to this discussion, then please do so. If you bought these domains at a bargain price, then you have nothing to answer for (although it is possible that you could be forced to cough up the domains). However, the original registration of the domains needs to be questioned. I have never maintained that I know many of the relevant facts in this matter. However, it is apparent that a few people were able to benefit on what had been reserved as valuable public property. At a minimum, the Dept of Commerce needs to be brought into this to investigate what has happened here. I started this thread because I hope that enough interest will be generated that the appropriate people will be brought in to investigate, and possibly right what appears to be a travesty.

 

[fundraiser]

According to important conversations I have had with some of the key players and what I personally have seen it appears some names like America.us (the best of the best) and other big ones dropped EARLY on Nov 16. Other key names like the state reserves dropped LATE on Dec 22 thought they were scheduled (according to the webpage I first read on Dec 22) to drop on Dec 15. I did visit the site several times on and before Dec 15 and did NOT locate the page with the schedule after much time on the site looking for it. I finally ran into the page on Dec 22 late night after most of the good names were gone earlier that day (about 7 hrs before my visit) and Nov 16 and oher dates too.

It seems one player and dnf member got hundreds possibly thousands of great ones, perhaps 95% or more of the really good ones, includig great acronyms like FDIC.us for example, and loads of others.

During a phone conversation with a key player it was said a so called private firm managed to reg most all of the names and then sold some of them to 2 other key players and kept the rest for himself. That is basically all I know.

I agree there should have been better public notice and also agree the schedule should have been easy to find and made more noticable and also the time tabe should have been adhered to and not done any early or late drops.

P.S. A mysterious oddity is why are so MANY of the great us names reg'd at a place called Blueberry Hill? I called Blueberry Hill and they said they do NOT grab us drops, only biz and info? It is also interesting Blueberry Hill was working with Neustar as a subcontractor a few yrs ago regarding the Kids domains according to a Google cache.

I too contacted Blueberry Hill and while at the time they did not offer .us drops as part of their individual name catching service, they were willing to try to catch some .us names but required a minimum of a couple hundred names and also needed to be told when to try. You'll find a number of people make deals with registrars to grab names. Nothing unusual.

The city/local names dropped on November 10. Some of the names that did not have a specific government entity use also dropped. America.us was sitting available for registration by anyone for a few hours before someone realized it had dropped along with the city and local names. It has since transferred hands.

All of the names on the list went to pending delete on the whois before being released. Why that wasn't noticed by the big players, both individuals and firms, is beyond me. I do feel fortunate to have noticed.

 

[Deleted member 4749]

Well, Yakov, anyone with half a brain and the funds would pay $25,000 for Hawaii.us alone. It is probably worth 10 to 40 times that.

This has nothing to do with jealousy, it has to do with what appears to be the violation of a public trust by Neustar.

Yakov, the only thing I would accuse you of is bad manners, bad enough that you should be at least cautioned by DNF mods.

If you have some facts to offer to this discussion, then please do so. If you bought these domains at a bargain price, then you have nothing to answer for (although it is possible that you could be forced to cough up the domains). However, the original registration of the domains needs to be questioned. I have never maintained that I know many of the relevant facts in this matter. However, it is apparent that a few people were able to benefit on what had been reserved as valuable public property. At a minimum, the Dept of Commerce needs to be brought into this to investigate what has happened here. I started this thread because I hope that enough interest will be generated that the appropriate people will be brought in to investigate, and possibly right what appears to be a travesty.

You lack braincells.

 

[fundraiser]

I have never maintained that I know many of the relevant facts in this matter. However, it is apparent that a few people were able to benefit on what had been reserved as valuable public property. At a minimum, the Dept of Commerce needs to be brought into this to investigate what has happened here. I started this thread because I hope that enough interest will be generated that the appropriate people will be brought in to investigate, and possibly right what appears to be a travesty.

Am I invisible here? I have provided facts, none of which are being disputed. There were reserve names on the drop lists put out by the registry and available publicly at the site. The whois status for all reserve names changed publicly. The time frame for the release was public and updated throughout last year. Done the old way, there would have been auctions for the names which would have limited the domains to those with deep pockets. I paid $6.95. It could not have been more fair.

 

[David G]

So are you saying America.us dropped randomly. It seems there should have been a public notice on the drop time.

Also, assuming Blueberry Hill may be hired for a larger job like that but as you said they would still need to know specific drop times and dates so how could they have monitored 24X7 from Dec 15 thru Dec 22? This all seems quite odd to say the least.

Another issue is why so many other great names dropped at odd dates, both early and late? It seems since these were held in the public trust the registry is responsible for public awareness and issuing notice of dates and strictly adhering to the schedues.

Basically 3 domainers (possibly 4) have become overnight millionaires over this.

I too contacted Blueberry Hill and while at the time they did not offer .us drops as part of their individual name catching service, they were willing to try to catch some .us names but required a minimum of a couple hundred names and also needed to be told when to try. You'll find a number of people make deals with registrars to grab names. Nothing unusual.

The city/local names dropped on November 10. Some of the names that did not have a specific government entity use also dropped. America.us was sitting available for registration by anyone for a few hours before someone realized it had dropped along with the city and local names. It has since transferred hands.

All of the names on the list went to pending delete on the whois before being released. Why that wasn't noticed by the big players, both individuals and firms, is beyond me. I do feel fortunate to have noticed.

quote=fundraiser. It could not have been more fair.

Does not sound too fair when there was little public notice, the drop dates were impossible to find when I looked during several visits to the site on and before Dec 15, and to make matters worse the top names all appear to have dropped both early and later than the hard to find schedule page indicated, as much as one month early to 7 days late!

What could be more unfair than all of that?

 

[hiOsilver]

Am I invisible here? I have provided facts, none of which are being disputed. There were reserve names on the drop lists put out by the registry and available publicly at the site. The whois status for all reserve names changed publicly. The time frame for the release was public and updated throughout last year. Done the old way, there would have been auctions for the names which would have limited the domains to those with deep pockets. I paid $6.95. It could not have been more fair.

Fundraiser,

You are not invisible. I was responding to Blink's inappropriate post. Thanks for providing some facts to this discussion.

My objection is not with anything you did or anything that Blink did. It is possible that Neustar acted inappropriately. The notice did not go out very far. Congratulations to you on your great acquisitions.