Call it bulk confusion at BulkRegister - Wired certainly did, when the domain name registrar only recently accredited turned out, allegedly, to have released for sale several URLs which had been purchased already.
Customers tell Wired BulkRegister recently sold several domain names to customers and then released them for sale once again a day or two later. The names were later re-sold by other registrars including Network Solutions and Register.com, the magazine says.
Atlanta intranet developer Josh Bond tells Wired he bought eDiscount.com and FashionShop.com from BulkRegister Jan. 16 but, 24 hours later, BulkRegister apparently released the names on a shared registry, with other customers buying the same names from Network Solutions.
Wired says Network Solutions didn't know about the problem, but company spokeswoman Cheryl Regan tells the magazine they plan to investigate.
"BulkRegister admits they have a problem and that it screwed up," Bond tells Wired. BulkRegister hasn't suggested, though, when or whether that problem would be solved, the magazine says, and that Bond might not even get his rightfully-purchased domain names back.
BulkRegister's domain name database, however, still listed Bond as the owner of eDiscount.com as of Jan. 16. Network Solutions's database showed the name was owned by Sang Sik Eom as of the next day. BulkRegister also showed Bond as the owner of fashionshop.com on Jan. 16, but Network Solutions showed it bought by Jodi Thompson on the same day.
Thompson's husband, Steve, tells Wired they weren't aware of the problem with the fashionshop.com name, but it would be interesting "to see how it all plays out. It's the name we were keeping our eye on, and we're certainly not going to just give it up."
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) tells the magazine they're not responsible for domain name discrepancies between registrars and their customers. "The policies that guide that come from the agreement between the registrar and registrant," says ICANN spokeswoman Pam Brewster to Wired, suggesting also that reimbursements might be in order.
"The only way a name can be cancelled is if it's mistakenly registered," she tells the magazine. "If some type of technical mistake was made then there could be relief for somebody."
