ChrisCavalier
07-22-2006, 11:16 PM
Hello Everyone,
I wanted to take a moment to explain a little bit more about what caused our site's outage yesterday as well as some of my thoughts on the matter. I apologize up front that this post is a little lengthy but I want to let everyone know about a situation that I think deserves some consideration. However, before I do, let me first thank everyone who sent us emails and called us directly yesterday to offer their support and access to their contacts if we needed them. It is great to know there are so many of you out there that care enough to offer their help to someone in need. Then again, I guess that is what this community is about.
I also want to thank Tim Sullivan, and the people at Godengo Inc., for the way they resolved this situation. Those of you who received Mr. Sullivan's email yesterday already know that Godengo handles GUU’s hosting and domain services and that the interruption in the site was caused by unfortunate series of events that resulted in a lapse in the gameuseduniverse.com domain name registration. While Mr. Sullivan's email also mentioned that Godengo takes full responsibility for the situation, what Tim didn't mention is the professionalism in which he handled the matter and the efforts he took to make sure Game Used Universe's site was restored as quickly as possible. As I share the details, I hope you will join me in thanking Mr. Sullivan for being a person of great character and for what he did to make sure our members experienced as little inconvenience as possible.
While I won't get into every single detail here, the main issue yesterday involved the process that was used to renew our domain name registration. As per Mr. Sullivan's email, Godengo was in charge of the site's renewal process and unfortunately encountered a very sad set of circumstances that has affected a number of unsuspecting businesses. In this case, Godengo had set up the GUU account to automatically renew all of our domain name registrations (we have a number of them) each year. Since the account was set to 'auto-renew' there wasn't any concern that the registration window would be missed.
When the time came to renew the registration, the domain name registration company alerted Godengo to the fact that their account needed to be updated for all of the renewals to be processed. GUU also received a notification to this effect and we had a correspondence with Godengo to make sure there wasn't any problem. Godengo subsequently let us know that they provided what was necessary to the domain name registration company and that the renewals were taken care of.
Unfortunately, what Godengo did not know is that although the account was set to 'auto-renew' the domain name registration company did not automatically renew the registrations once the account was updated. Since Godengo never heard anything to the contrary from the registration company, they assumed they had taken care of the matter and that the registrations were, in fact, automatically renewed. This is where the sad part comes in.
The domain name registration company never informed Godengo that, although the account was updated with what was needed, they would not automatically renew the domain names even though the account was set to ‘auto-renew’. They later said their protocol does not require them to automatically renew the registrations for accounts that require updating nor did they inform Godengo that the renewals were not processed. This allowed the domain name registration company to subsequently resell the domain name in a private auction (at a higher price) to entities that have come to be known as ‘drop catchers’. Notably, they did this without informing us (the existing domain name owners) of what they were doing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with ‘drop catching’, here is an article, a rather disturbing one in my opinion, which explains more about it:
http://www.startupjournal.com/ecommerce/ecommerce/20060307-kesmodel.html?refresh=on (http://www.startupjournal.com/ecommerce/ecommerce/20060307-kesmodel.html?refresh=on)
In this case, our domain name was sold to a 'drop catcher' while the domain name registration company never informed Godengo that the renewals were not processed, nor did they inform Godengo of any risk that the domain name would be resold. In fact, the first time we were made aware of the problem was when I woke up yesterday and tried to access the site. After I contacted the Godengo people, they subsequently spoke with the domain name registration company and learned for the first time what had happened.
At this point, we had a couple of options. After speaking with our attorneys, we realized we could likely take this through the legal channels and get the domain name back. However, that process would likely take a good deal of time and we would not have access to the domain name during that period. The other option was to try to contact the 'drop catcher' directly and ask what they wanted to sell the domain name back to us. Fortunately for GUU, though the situation seemed extremely unjust, Mr. Sullivan saw the situation as one he felt his company was responsible for and he wanted to rectify things with as little inconvenience to our members as possible. Thus, Mr. Sullivan contacted the 'drop catcher' and agreed to buy the GUU domain name back for a rather sizable amount of money in order to restore it right away.
Personally, I think the whole situation is an unfortunate example of what, as the attached article implies, are some problems that exist in the domain name registration industry. In addition, I also think it speaks volumes for dealing with reputable individuals like Mr. Sullivan who clearly understands the meaning of integrity. As a side note, I think similar problems also exist in the sports collectible industry. Thankfully, as members of this community, we can educate ourselves to see who the honorable people of our industry are and make our own decisions as to who we wish to associate with.
Sincerely,
Christopher Cavalier
CEO – Game Used Universe
I wanted to take a moment to explain a little bit more about what caused our site's outage yesterday as well as some of my thoughts on the matter. I apologize up front that this post is a little lengthy but I want to let everyone know about a situation that I think deserves some consideration. However, before I do, let me first thank everyone who sent us emails and called us directly yesterday to offer their support and access to their contacts if we needed them. It is great to know there are so many of you out there that care enough to offer their help to someone in need. Then again, I guess that is what this community is about.
I also want to thank Tim Sullivan, and the people at Godengo Inc., for the way they resolved this situation. Those of you who received Mr. Sullivan's email yesterday already know that Godengo handles GUU’s hosting and domain services and that the interruption in the site was caused by unfortunate series of events that resulted in a lapse in the gameuseduniverse.com domain name registration. While Mr. Sullivan's email also mentioned that Godengo takes full responsibility for the situation, what Tim didn't mention is the professionalism in which he handled the matter and the efforts he took to make sure Game Used Universe's site was restored as quickly as possible. As I share the details, I hope you will join me in thanking Mr. Sullivan for being a person of great character and for what he did to make sure our members experienced as little inconvenience as possible.
While I won't get into every single detail here, the main issue yesterday involved the process that was used to renew our domain name registration. As per Mr. Sullivan's email, Godengo was in charge of the site's renewal process and unfortunately encountered a very sad set of circumstances that has affected a number of unsuspecting businesses. In this case, Godengo had set up the GUU account to automatically renew all of our domain name registrations (we have a number of them) each year. Since the account was set to 'auto-renew' there wasn't any concern that the registration window would be missed.
When the time came to renew the registration, the domain name registration company alerted Godengo to the fact that their account needed to be updated for all of the renewals to be processed. GUU also received a notification to this effect and we had a correspondence with Godengo to make sure there wasn't any problem. Godengo subsequently let us know that they provided what was necessary to the domain name registration company and that the renewals were taken care of.
Unfortunately, what Godengo did not know is that although the account was set to 'auto-renew' the domain name registration company did not automatically renew the registrations once the account was updated. Since Godengo never heard anything to the contrary from the registration company, they assumed they had taken care of the matter and that the registrations were, in fact, automatically renewed. This is where the sad part comes in.
The domain name registration company never informed Godengo that, although the account was updated with what was needed, they would not automatically renew the domain names even though the account was set to ‘auto-renew’. They later said their protocol does not require them to automatically renew the registrations for accounts that require updating nor did they inform Godengo that the renewals were not processed. This allowed the domain name registration company to subsequently resell the domain name in a private auction (at a higher price) to entities that have come to be known as ‘drop catchers’. Notably, they did this without informing us (the existing domain name owners) of what they were doing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with ‘drop catching’, here is an article, a rather disturbing one in my opinion, which explains more about it:
http://www.startupjournal.com/ecommerce/ecommerce/20060307-kesmodel.html?refresh=on (http://www.startupjournal.com/ecommerce/ecommerce/20060307-kesmodel.html?refresh=on)
In this case, our domain name was sold to a 'drop catcher' while the domain name registration company never informed Godengo that the renewals were not processed, nor did they inform Godengo of any risk that the domain name would be resold. In fact, the first time we were made aware of the problem was when I woke up yesterday and tried to access the site. After I contacted the Godengo people, they subsequently spoke with the domain name registration company and learned for the first time what had happened.
At this point, we had a couple of options. After speaking with our attorneys, we realized we could likely take this through the legal channels and get the domain name back. However, that process would likely take a good deal of time and we would not have access to the domain name during that period. The other option was to try to contact the 'drop catcher' directly and ask what they wanted to sell the domain name back to us. Fortunately for GUU, though the situation seemed extremely unjust, Mr. Sullivan saw the situation as one he felt his company was responsible for and he wanted to rectify things with as little inconvenience to our members as possible. Thus, Mr. Sullivan contacted the 'drop catcher' and agreed to buy the GUU domain name back for a rather sizable amount of money in order to restore it right away.
Personally, I think the whole situation is an unfortunate example of what, as the attached article implies, are some problems that exist in the domain name registration industry. In addition, I also think it speaks volumes for dealing with reputable individuals like Mr. Sullivan who clearly understands the meaning of integrity. As a side note, I think similar problems also exist in the sports collectible industry. Thankfully, as members of this community, we can educate ourselves to see who the honorable people of our industry are and make our own decisions as to who we wish to associate with.
Sincerely,
Christopher Cavalier
CEO – Game Used Universe