Interesting Idea By Stephen Douglas At SuccessClick.com

Stephen Douglas over at SuccessClick.com has written a post asking for readers to comment or email him with their thoughts on what the biggest domain scandals have. Knowing Stephen I really think what he puts together around this could be very interesting.

We have had our fair share of scandal lately with the Snapnames/Halvarez/Nelson Brady fiasco but, as one commenter brought up, RegisterFly would be considered another pretty big scandal and some would even consider insider bidding on Tdnam auctions at Godaddy.com a bit of a scandal (although taken care of rather rapidly).

Here is the text of Stephens request:

Question: What scandals have occured in the last five years that you believe were the WORST scandals for our industry?

I welcome all comments, all problems you’ve encountered, whether they were resolved, and what your personal feelings were about the final outcome of the scandal/s you suggest.  You can submit several problems you’ve encountered if you like. Tell us your story, and what kind of “impression” about the domain industry was left in your mind, with either a good or bad resolution.

I think this could be an interesting story, if anything just to see what peoples perceptions are of "big" when it comes to scandal. Head over to SuccessClick.com or contact Stephen.

What Ticks Me Off The Most About Halvarez

I usually try to avoid reporting the same thing everyone else has, we have all read tons of stories today about the Snapnames debacle and Halvarez (Nelson Brady). As someone who has been up against Halvarez countless times and wondered who was the man (machine....) on the otherside I was not the least bit surprised that it was that specific account that was found to be a scam.

Now, obviously from a financial perspective it ticks me off, I would venture to bet the majority of the domain investors who focus on either quality generic or traffic drops have ran up against Halvarez before, many many times, but what really bothers me is the bigger picture issue with this situation.

As someone who spends a good portion of his time out working with customers on how to do business online, whether it be proper advertising, SEO, web development, etc. It makes it very difficult to be taken seriously when it comes to discussing aftermarket domain names when this is the type of news that is constantly seen anytime domains are in the media. This story was picked up by top news sites today and a portion of the general public will read this.

The industry is already tainted in many peoples minds because of a lack of understanding and no true face or message being given to the world other than stories like this and now the hole just keeps getting dug deeper for us.

The majority of business owners I speak with understand the value of a good domain after real estate is used as a reference, cybersquatter is a term that many have heard but they had never thought of names as real estate, they only hear the trademark stories. But all the education in the world on the value does no good if people see stories like this about the acquisition of domain names on drop or the secondary market.

As I said in an interview awhile back, we need to promote a professional face to the public, until that happens we will never be taken seriously. Right now, whether you want to hear it or not we continue to look like a bunch of amateurs. Even if the people are dead wrong just read the comments at TechCrunch (again) to see how the world views domaining, stories like today just put us back 10 steps....

Sure, the banks and financial institutions were (are) full of crooks too, but they are an accepted industry so they do not have to prove themselves as professionals, WE as an industry are not really considered *real*, how are we going to fix that?????