12-11-2006, 10:06 PM
Exactly,
Its not that any business does not have the right to make certain decisions.
Afternic did not take into account that its members had a investment in their business. Afterall for years and years they promoted the names, encouraged us to buy and park such names in their website. Plus the discuss names forum encouraged talking about poker and sex names as they were talked about daily.
The staff even remarked on such names.
So here is the point. If you owned Afternic and your members paid a fee to list certain names for a one year period and every day those types of names were for sale and sold you have a obligation to those paying members to not pull the rug from under them. Your obligation is to honor your members rights to certain policies.
I paid for my membership for a year. If my landlord did not honor my years price and jacked it up or changed my contract without giving me ( one years) notice, I would sue them.
All Afternic had to do was tell its members in one year time we will not accept certain names.
To announce in one simple email they are not acceptable and to not take into account the hard work and the finacial loss of its members only for the sole purpose of catering to a new owners request is a slap in the face to all its members. If you are for the censorship or not the way it was done is inexcusable.
Management did not respond at all to all the confusion and questions asked, simply deciding to ignore us.
Then to top off the bad business decision they slam all decent domainers who own such names by saying the names are not ones for setting high standards for the domain industry. Add to that the declaration made in the websites homepage that owning those types of names are promoting hate and violence is bigotry. So if you owned girlsforum or boys today name and it was pulled, you are being labeled by a industry leader as having names that promote hate and violence. Even if you intend the names to be used for a blog or whatever. Shame on Afternic for such stupid decisions.
Afternic made millions selling such names, then all of a sudden those names are not good enough for the domain industry.
The very worst part of this clean out is they took it upon themselves to declare " those types of names promote hate and violence".
Well I take great issue with that and many folks who are active in the gay lesbian movements are taking issue with that statement too. Hopefully lawsuits will be filed. Today someone posted in Afternic " why is my phonevirus name" I just listed in Afternic being pulled? The answer from their management is virus can be seen as attacking the phone business, lol.. that place is looney and it is not getting any better.
So, yes support freedom of speech and that includes your right not to list certain names if you want. Do not support companies that treat their customers who have brought them much success so shabbily. That is what is making so many people mad.
If you do not agree that they have treated their customers (domainers shabbily) then you will allow any other company to see Afternic got away with it and they might just do that to you too.
Stand up for domainers rights. The right to be treated with proper business ethics.
Before you say.. " well I am glad someplace decides to delist controversial names", think about this. Does that company promote freedom of speech by their actions.
When a company says any name that has a gambling term or an adult term in it we do not think it is a good image for the domain industry, they are on a crusade to walk over people to acheive their goals. That goal was to satisfy the new buyers request and not to satisfy its loyal members.
The previous owner of Afternic ( Roger Collins) it seems to me is hypocritical in that only six weeks before the announcement that gambling domains are not the standard for the domain industry was seen gambling for money on a private yacht at a domainers traffic convention.
He is seen in the photo with his hands raking in a big pile of money he won in that card game. Probably some of that money was earned by some domainer selling a name or from parking revenue earned that is now banned at Afternic.
That says it all.
Its not that any business does not have the right to make certain decisions.
Afternic did not take into account that its members had a investment in their business. Afterall for years and years they promoted the names, encouraged us to buy and park such names in their website. Plus the discuss names forum encouraged talking about poker and sex names as they were talked about daily.
The staff even remarked on such names.
So here is the point. If you owned Afternic and your members paid a fee to list certain names for a one year period and every day those types of names were for sale and sold you have a obligation to those paying members to not pull the rug from under them. Your obligation is to honor your members rights to certain policies.
I paid for my membership for a year. If my landlord did not honor my years price and jacked it up or changed my contract without giving me ( one years) notice, I would sue them.
All Afternic had to do was tell its members in one year time we will not accept certain names.
To announce in one simple email they are not acceptable and to not take into account the hard work and the finacial loss of its members only for the sole purpose of catering to a new owners request is a slap in the face to all its members. If you are for the censorship or not the way it was done is inexcusable.
Management did not respond at all to all the confusion and questions asked, simply deciding to ignore us.
Then to top off the bad business decision they slam all decent domainers who own such names by saying the names are not ones for setting high standards for the domain industry. Add to that the declaration made in the websites homepage that owning those types of names are promoting hate and violence is bigotry. So if you owned girlsforum or boys today name and it was pulled, you are being labeled by a industry leader as having names that promote hate and violence. Even if you intend the names to be used for a blog or whatever. Shame on Afternic for such stupid decisions.
Afternic made millions selling such names, then all of a sudden those names are not good enough for the domain industry.
The very worst part of this clean out is they took it upon themselves to declare " those types of names promote hate and violence".
Well I take great issue with that and many folks who are active in the gay lesbian movements are taking issue with that statement too. Hopefully lawsuits will be filed. Today someone posted in Afternic " why is my phonevirus name" I just listed in Afternic being pulled? The answer from their management is virus can be seen as attacking the phone business, lol.. that place is looney and it is not getting any better.
So, yes support freedom of speech and that includes your right not to list certain names if you want. Do not support companies that treat their customers who have brought them much success so shabbily. That is what is making so many people mad.
If you do not agree that they have treated their customers (domainers shabbily) then you will allow any other company to see Afternic got away with it and they might just do that to you too.
Stand up for domainers rights. The right to be treated with proper business ethics.
Before you say.. " well I am glad someplace decides to delist controversial names", think about this. Does that company promote freedom of speech by their actions.
When a company says any name that has a gambling term or an adult term in it we do not think it is a good image for the domain industry, they are on a crusade to walk over people to acheive their goals. That goal was to satisfy the new buyers request and not to satisfy its loyal members.
The previous owner of Afternic ( Roger Collins) it seems to me is hypocritical in that only six weeks before the announcement that gambling domains are not the standard for the domain industry was seen gambling for money on a private yacht at a domainers traffic convention.
He is seen in the photo with his hands raking in a big pile of money he won in that card game. Probably some of that money was earned by some domainer selling a name or from parking revenue earned that is now banned at Afternic.
That says it all.