I appreciate your commentary, but the bottom line is that someone tried to sell a domain name that I own without my permission. He had no right to try and sell my domain name to anyone, especially because he hadn’t even won the auction.

There might be some leeway if he was the winning bidder, but the auction ended without meeting reserve, so there was no winning bidder.

There is a difference between something being against NameJet TOS, illegal, and unethical. They are all different things, and the first two are pretty much set in stone while the last is a judgment call.

I don’t think this is a matter of ethics. There are plenty of things that are in an ethical grey area, but this isn’t strictly unethical.

Your answer built up a straw man argument, something is either legal or illegal talking about drug dealing has no relevance to this.

Also this practice of front-running is either allowed or not allowed on namejet and if it is I can only assume that the people who are engaged in the practice are contributing significant amounts of money to namejets coffers because they would have pulled out of enough deals where their buyers have renaged for namejet to know what’s going on.

I have seen a lot of names on namejet with no bids but then someone makes the fatal error of putting a bid in giving others enough time to go through the list of what’s been backordered and the next thing you know there are 40 people on it, a handful who most can’t compete against. The reason I say this is because that’s something that annoys me but it’s perfectly legal and namejet wouldn’t change it so you can’t see what’s been backordered, where people would have to do their own work, because it would cost them money ultimately, so I accept it and move on.

By the way I have never engaged in this activity, up until a couple of months ago I thought it was wrong on many levels but quite frankly it’s funny that if someone was to be found to be front-running they would be a pariah and yet some people who blatantly violate trademarks are industry voices. No one gives a damn until it’s their bread coming off the table, not really how an industry gains any credibility.

This isn’t a dig at you Elliot, from what I have seen you’re a straight shooter, this is just to point out there is hypocrisy on this subject and ethical standards of behaviour when the practices of others are over looked.

How can this practice be de-incentivized?

Why would there be a rule from NameJet? I am sure there isn’t a rule that says you can’t buy a domain name with money that was obtained from the sale of illegal narcotics, but it’s against the law to purchase things with illegal drug sale proceeds.

The overarching thing is that trying to sell a domain name you don’t own without permission from the owner is not legal. I can’t go and try to sell my neighbor’s apartment without permission hoping that I can find a buyer willing to pay more for it than I can pay to make a profit.

No one answered my first question.

I asked who he intended talking to, as until he buys the name he doesn’t have the authority to approach end users…only the owner (me) or his representative has that option.

Cutting it short, he withdrew his interest in the domain saying he is allowed to speak to whomever he likes.

I don’t know how he approaches people, nor what his reputation is – IMO you buy a domain on your own judgement and then talk to people about selling it to them.

Just watching out for my boy Matt.

Didn’t think about that… I updated the post title to avoid any confusion – thanks.

This has been going on for a year now, I get emails for my own domain names on a daily basis, has even led to sales when I renew them from the parties they contacted.

Just an automated spammy script, and the end user just thinks all domainers are losers, as we get batched in with these fools.

Yep, but I’m going to call it out when someone does something I believe to be illicit that impacts my business.

Incidentally, this wasn’t the first time I received an email like this, but that other email had no impact on my business so I didn’t write about it. I also thought it might have been a one-off thing, but this time it involved my domain name and it wasn’t a one off lapse in judgment.

i like your blog so i’m gonna share with you one of my best tips. everyone who emails you is not your friend.

hope that helps