Google is an excellent resource to find info on prospective interviewee's....Here is previous articles on Buydomains.com & and it's CEO Michael Mann
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/409701
July 7, 2000
BuyDomains.com Offers Free Transfer Service
By dc.internet.com Staff
Hoping to tap into dissatisfied customers at Network Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN) (NSI), BuyDomains.com is offering a free, instant domain name transfer service for NSI registered customers. Any remaining term on a customers existing registration will be retained at no cost while customers receive BuyDomains.com's value added services during the period.
In a company statement, the Bethseda, Md.-based BuyDomains.com accuses NSI of "customer-unfriendly" acts such as NSI's recent announcement that expired domain names will be auctioned off to the highest bidder on NSI's auction site, rather than being released into public domain pool as required by ICANN. The company also cites NSI's registration agreement that says domain owners who register with NSI don't actually own their domain name.
Michael Mann, Chief Executive Officer of BuyDomains.com says his philosophy is different, "We think our customers own their domain names and we think they deserve better treatment. That's why we are offering to transfer any domain registration for free if transferring customers extend their registration by one year for only $17."
To transfer domains an owner needs to do is visit the site at
http://www.buydomains.com.
Registrants at BuyDomains.com receive unlimited e-mail address forwarding, URL and frame forwarding, domain parking and DNS, along with toll-free technical support.
In addition the BuyDomains.com Web site offers an assorted collection of over 15,000 premium domain names available for immediate sale.
http://news.com.com/2010-1080-281340.html
NSI accused by rivals of hoarding domain names
By Brian Livingston
July 21, 2000, 4:00 AM PT
Network Solutions, the sole registrar of domain names until 1999, is hoarding for itself at least 1 million expired names, figures from other registrars show.
Competitors of Network Solutions (NSI) are furious over what they say is the Virginia company's refusal to put unpaid names back into the "pool" for others to register.
"This act is completely and utterly illegal," said Sasha Mornell, senior vice president of Register.com, the second-largest registrar. "It's an abuse of their former monopolist power."
Michael Mann, president of BuyDomains.com, said, "There are at least 1 million names that are currently being hoarded by Network Solutions."
Mann's company searches public databases to track how many names should be available, but aren't. He said in the month of May alone, 207,448 ".com" names expired and were kept off the market by NSI.
"Since this doesn't include '.nets' and '.orgs,' we estimate the total number to be approximately 300,000 names per month they're hoarding," Mann said.
NSI used to delete expired names from the central registry database it maintains, making those names available for others. But Mann said NSI hasn't released any expired names to the pool since May 31.
The issue is red-hot because NSI announced in May that it plans to begin auctioning domain names.
Asked how many names NSI itself might auction, senior vice president Roger Cochetti said most business services that accept credit card orders experience a "2 to 5 percent charge-back rate." At that rate, he said, NSI "would generate between 200,000 and 500,000 registrations that were unpaid each year."
Angry competitors, however, are certain that the names NSI is keeping off the market are far more numerous.
They cite NSI's annual report, filed March 30 with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. The report states that "from September 1995 through December 1999, approximately 36.5 percent of registrations have ultimately been deactivated for nonpayment."
As NSI had registered more than 10 million domain names by December 1999, a 36.5 percent rate of nonpayment would result in more than 3.6 million unpaid names.
Asked how many unpaid names NSI still holds, spokeswoman Cheryl Regan said, "We do not disclose the number of unpaid registrations--only paid registrations--in our quarterly results."
Instead of returning unpaid names to the pool, Mann charges that NSI is unilaterally extending its expiration dates. This would make these names appear unavailable to others.
I was able to confirm that this kind of extension--a sort of life-support for terminal domain names--has occurred.
Keven Graves, general manager of the Nisqually Valley News in Yelm, Wash., said NSI extended the expiration date of his company's domain name, Yelmnews.com, from March 2000 to March 2001, without his company's permission.
Graves said he had so many problems updating his contact information with NSI last winter that he hoped the name would expire so he could register it with someone else. But the involuntary extension means Graves' registration remains with NSI, which charges $199 for an "expedited" transfer.
It's unclear what the Internet's coordinating body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, will do about NSI's proposed auction of unpaid names.
"Some of the features of the proposed auctions might violate our agreements," said Louis Touton, ICANN's in-house legal counsel.
Touton said ICANN has not made a decision about whether to take any specific action to stop NSI from auctioning names.
NSI has postponed its planned auction by 40 days in response to ICANN's concerns, Cochetti said.
The domain names at stake may not be worth millions, but that doesn't mean someone out there wouldn't like to use them. Such workable names as FineLine.com, MassCommunication.com and AerialServices.com expired months ago but still cannot be registered through any registrar.
Considering how it has been keeping names like these off the market, NSI might consider buying one of those warehoused names for itself--CentralControl.com.
http://www.acscompro.com/press/pr011802.html (insight on what Michael Mann thinks about WLS)
>>>>>Michael Mann, president of the leading secondary domain market, BuyDomains.com, flatly calls VeriSign's anticompetitive efforts "a sham on all domain consumers and VeriSign competitors". BuyDomains.com and dozens of other competitors are urging authorities to put a halt to what they consider to be outrageously anticompetitive behavior. Competitors want all the expired, hoarded domains to be immediately put back into circulation (allowing the free market to flourish) and for VeriSign to rescind its anticompetitive WLS proposal.<<<<<
http://www.bizforward.com/wdc/issues/2000-07/launchpad/
>>>>>Some people make a living recognizing what's in a name. Michael Mann, CEO of the Bethesda, MD-based cyberspace real estate prospecting company BuyDomains.com, says he wishes that he owned mom.com. "It's a great name," says Mann, who values the URL at anywhere between $500,000 and $1.5 million. "It's short, it's to the point and it reminds you of somebody you love." According to Mann, dad.com, which is owned by a person in Marina del Rey, CA who couldn't be reached for comment, would be a bit cheaper. "I'd give dad a 30 percent discount," Mann says. "Mom seems to be more popular than dad - there are more active moms out there than dads, and an extra bonus is that mom.com rhymes." Dad.com, which features politics and finance on its site, is "just not as great," says Mann, adding that dishing out dough for catchy URLs can save companies big bucks on brand development. <<<<<
Now it's getting even more "confuseder" with charges by BuyDomains.com, one of the marketers of new domains, and a leading proponent of a "secondary marketplace" for "pre-owned" domain names, that Verisign is pulling a fast one on its competitors, the public and Congress with its "waiting list" policy for expired domains.
"Versign is now asserting its monopoly power by announcing they want to charge $40 to every competitor who wants to register an expired name for their customer by getting on a VeriSign controlled 'waiting list'. They say this is a way for them to save money on their technical systems yet they already get $180 million a year to run the database, they don't make basic improvements to the current system, and they will still be running the current system in parallel for any domains that aren't purchased via the WLS and expire naturally," says Michael Mann, president of BuyDomains.com.<<<<<<<
http://www.investrend.com/FiXarticle8.html
>>>Mann flatly calls VeriSign's efforts "a sham on all domain consumers and VeriSign competitors." BuyDomains.com and dozens of other competitors are urging authorities to put a halt to what they consider to be "outrageously anticompetitive behavior." Mann lists people and organizations that should be contacted "if you are sick of being abused by NSI/VeriSign's monopoly power. Most are paid with your tax dollars."
