ICANN complaint against Telnames

mikeseaton wrote:1. ICANN will reject the complaint(s) on the grounds that Telnames Ltd.is NOT an ICANN-accredited Registrar - they are legally a Reseller for ICANN-accredited Registrar Key Systems of Germany.

di7 wrote:Or use telnames complaint. The form is on position one here, too!

Thank you for submitting a Article VII - Special Provisions complaint concerning the top-level domain .tel.

ICANN reviewed your complaint and requires additional information. Please provide ICANN the following by 23 June 2014:

1. Evidence you might have available supporting your complaint regarding the following:

(a) Telnic is selling domains directly to customers through Telnames.

(b) Telnames is faking an involvement of the German registrar Key-Systems who has in fact not the slightest task in administrating the domains at Telnames.

(c) Telnic is preparing the deletion of all domains at other registrars and wants to force all customers to switch to Telnames for a premium price, so Telnic / Telnames doesn’t have to share the registration and renewal fees with other registrars.

Please send the information and records requested above via reply email (no more than 4 MB total) and do not change the email subject heading. Please provide records as attachments in .TXT, .PDF, or .DOC(X) format.

If you do not reply by 23 June 2014, ICANN will close your complaint.

Sincerely,

ICANN Contractual Compliance

Dear ICANN,

Thank you for your message.

Here the requested information:

1.) Telnic is selling domains directly to customers through Telnames.

Telnames is neither an ICANN accredited registrar nor a reseller for any other registrar.
Telnames is completely owned by Telnic, the registry for .tel domains:
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/07471889/TELNAMES-LIMITED/group-structure#shareholders
The management board and the employees of Telnic and Telnames are the same people:
http://www.teltalk.org/t1637-organizational-diagrams-telnic-telnames
In fact Telnic and Telnames are the same company. Telnames was only founded for the purpose of selling domains directly to customers because Telnic isn't allowed to sell them officially to customers (due to the registry agreement with ICANN).
The sale of .tel domains by Telnames happens directly to customers only through the website http://www.telnames.com which get administrated by the employees of Telnic only.

2.) Telnames is faking an involvement of the German registrar Key-Systems who has in fact not the slightest task in administrating the domains at Telnames.

Telnic is aware that Telnic isn't allowed to sell domains directly to customers through Telnames.
To hide this fact, they display the registrar Key-Systems in the public Whois data.
Here one example from one Telnic / Telnames employee:
http://telnic.org/whois.html?domain=aled

One the other hand Key-Systems isn't involved in the daily operation of Telnames at all:
- The administration of domains from Telnames happens at Telnic.
- The development of domains from Telnames happens at Telnic through the same developer with the name Huw Stead:
http://huw.tel
- The marketing for domains from Telnames is executed by Telnic, e.g. through these channels:
https://twitter.com/tel_names
https://facebook.com/telnames
http://pinterest.com/telnames
https://www.youtube.com/telnames
- There are no tasks for domains at Telnames that are executed by Key-Systems.
- Key-Systems provide only their name to be displayed in the Whois.

3.) Telnic is preparing the deletion of all domains at other registrars and wants to force all customers to switch to Telnames for a premium price, so Telnic / Telnames doesn’t have to share the registration and renewal fees with other registrars.

In the year 2011 Telnic have stopped all development for the .tel domains offered through other registrars than Telnames.
The announced developments for 2011 have never been delivered:
http://www.teltalk.org/t145p8-the-long-lost-tel-roadmap-uncovered
Telnic is concentrating on the marketing of .tel domains through Telnames completely:
https://twitter.com/tel_names
https://facebook.com/telnames
http://pinterest.com/telnames
https://www.youtube.com/telnames
Meanwhile all marketing for Telnic has fallen asleep.
E. g. the old blog of Telnic isn't reachable through its URL anymore:
http://telnic.org/blog
Here the latest entry:
https://www.telnic.org/blog/2011/01/17/navigating-change/
Telnic canceled the newsletter. Here the last one:
http://www.telnic.org/newsletters/dottelegraph-mar12.html
No activity can be found by Telnic anymore (neither on social media nor somewhere else).
Telnic has canceled the public forum in April 2012, the month when http://www.telnames.com was launched:
http://telnic.org/forum
Telnic never reacts to the massive complaints by the customers, e.g. at http://www.teltalk.org

Due to this inactivity by Telnic registration numbers have completely collapsed:
http://registrarstats.com/TLDHistoryChart.aspx?TLDName=TEL

It's obvious that Telnic only supports the sale of .tel domains through Telnames while the sale of .tel domains through other registrars gets massively neglected.

In addition Telnic developed a very nice product at Telnames that isn't available for customers at Telnic registrars.
The Telnic registrars struggle with selling the old product from Telnic that was never developed accordingly and is not saleable to customers.
If Telnic would have an interest in selling domains through other registrars than Telnames, Telnic would exchange the really bad product at Telnic as well.
But instead the useable product gets sold only through Telnames.

Very remarkable is also the fact that Telnic have never reacted to the strong crash of .tel domain registrations at other registrars.

It's impossible to reach Telnic for a statement since years!

ixida wrote:If Telnic should have a good conscience, why was never responded to the allegations?

Donuts, being a “registry”, is required by ICANN to only sell names via “registrars” such as Godaddy, 1&1.com, eNom, Tucows and many others, so we cannot sell names directly to the public.

mikeseaton wrote:I bet it won't take them 16 years - and counting - to start making a profit !

mikeseaton wrote:So unlike Telnic - who have bypassed their 133 Registrars to sell direct to their registrars' customers via their 100% owned subsidiary Telnames - Donuts are going to be professional and fair in their business approach !

Telnot wrote:

ixida wrote:If Telnic should have a good conscience, why was never responded to the allegations?

Telnic know exactly what they do. They want to kick the old customers out!

Thank you for submitting a Registry Other complaint concerning the top-level domain name .tel. ICANN has reviewed and closed your complaint because:

- Your complaint cannot be validated with the explanation or evidence provided to ICANN.

ICANN considers this matter now closed. If you require future assistance, please submit a new complaint to ICANN at http://www.icann.org/resources/compliance/complaints .

Please do not reply to this email (replies to closed complaints are not monitored by ICANN staff).

ICANN is requesting your feedback on this closed complaint. Please complete this optional survey at ...

Sincerely,

ICANN Contractual Compliance

josh. wrote:This could be one reason why ICANN didn't response to the complaints:

ICANN is aware of the breach of ICANN regulations and has more inside information about the future of .tel. Perhaps Telnic won't continue the administration of .tel, but ICANN don't want to publish any indication of the current situation to avoid influencing the process to exclude Telnic. It could be difficult enough to clean up the mess Telnic has created.

FrankW. wrote:I found this interesting article about this topic: Should new TLD registries sell directly to consumers?

There’s a lot of debate whenever you upset and established market channel. Some issues and questions about registry-registrar integration include:

A registrar could do the hard work to get initial registrations, then a registry could coax those customers away to its own registrar

Registries want registrars to push their domains, but they might not want to if they’re also competing against the registry’s own registrar.

Registries don’t necessarily have to become a registrar to realize the benefits of direct selling to end users. It could be as simple as becoming a reseller. - See more at: http://domainnamewire.com/2014/10/02/should-new-tld-registries-sell-directly-to-consumers/#sthash.Q9TxWNVq.dpuf

mikeseaton wrote:... a certain registry's action in shooting themselves in the foot ?