actually it – theoretically – ensures that each REGISTRAR has equal chances to register one of the domains, not the REGISTRANTS. There are small registrars with a couple of hundreds of customers and there are big registrars with several hundreds of thousands or even millions of customers. The small registrars can serve a higher percentage of their customers than the big registrars.

With such a big demand fur such few domain names there probably isn’t a real fair way for the registry and the registrars to get those names in the market – keeping in mind that DENIC had to act fast following the court decision for “vw.de”. That’s also one of the reasons why the registry hadn’t released those domain names in the past.

But what we as a registrar can do is to make this process as transparent (I guess that’s the better choice of words) as possible for our customers. And that is what we tried to do and – hopefully – achieved.

> Ah. So DENIC agrees with me! Got slapped, did you?

For what? For not personally taking advantage of the situation? ;-) There are no special terms from DENIC for this landrush beside the usual terms and conditions for registering .de-domains and the technical limitations. There are registrars who give away the first places in the queue as we do but keep the revenue for themselves, there are registrars renting their entire registry system to other registrars for a couple of hours during the landrush. Some are trying to partner with other registrars as can be read above and there are registrars who do not participate at all…

Best regards,
Peter

You’ve decided to game the system, to ensure only deep pocketed Registrants get anything.

>To show that we see this as a service to our customers and not as a way to gain additional revenue we decided to donate these auction bids to charity

Ah. So DENIC agrees with me! Got slapped, did you?

just to clarify why we charge a fee and auction the top of the queue: Each registrar will have a limit of 4 registration attempts per minute for the newly released .de-domains. With about 270 accredited registrars and a figure of about 800 to 1.300 high quality domain names getting released, the number of possible succesful registrations per registrar will be strictly limited.

Keeping this in mind, auctioning the order of the queue for us seems to be the most “fair” way to handle the introduction of the newly available domain names as it gives those of our customers the best chances of getting their domain names who have the biggest interest in those names. To show that we see this as a service to our customers and not as a way to gain additional revenue we decided to donate these auction bids to charity – with the positive side effect of being able to do something good :-)

Btw: A bid only has to be paid if the registration was succesful, if not we will only charge the fee of 25 €. And this fee only has to be paid if we really try to attempt registration for a domain name. If you’re not the highest bidder for a domain and your application is not forwarded to the registry, you won’t be charged at all.

Best regards,
Peter Mueller
Product Manager domainFACTORY