Take all the PR hype out of the mix and just read this one story and you’ll see exactly why so many people hate those .xxx people and how they are willing to MAYBE auction of YOUR trademarked name at a future date for a premium price.  We’ve said all along it’s a scam and now here is just one more bit of proof.  [source]

Before I start my rant feel free to tell me I should never have bothered with .xxx – I know now that is just what I should have done…Having been completely taken in by the registry’s sales pitch and in the hope of securing ‘my’ domains, I went ahead and followed their procedures… FOOL!

I am aware how the majority of you feel about this process and so won’t expect any sympathy, I just want to document this in case anyone else is even considering buying (or trying to buy) theirs.

I ‘pre-reserved’ – now this is being called ‘expressed an interest in’- ‘my’.xxx domain. I joined the ‘sponsored adult community’ – yes I know… MUG!

I have owned and operated janeyweb.com since 2000. I also own a large suite of top level domains (.coms and .co.uks as we are UK based) most of which contain janeyweb or janey in them.

My company trades as Janey Web Productions Ltd. My stage name is Janey Web.

Our registrar secured one .xxx domain with no problem – www.janeysweb.xxx – this in fact is a name we did not oringinally ‘express an interest’ in, we just decided to get it as we use the .com as a pay site.

We were then told by the registrar that janeyweb.xxx AND the second domain we were ‘interested in’ were blocked so they couldn’t buy them for us.

ICM confirmed that these domains were on their “Premium List”.

This means that they are not available in Sunrise A even though I own the top level domains. They MAY be up for auction in November (but they MAY NOT), or we can wait for Landrush in December if someone else didn’t already get them or if the registry actually decide to release them at all!

I asked the registrar to refund the domain we have secured as I do not want to do business with ICM any longer – in fact they have stopped corresponding with me despite never once answering all of my questions, including whether someone else had ‘expressed an interest’ in the domains – this I understood would be the only reason I wouldn’t get them straight away under sunrise A.

The registrar says they cannot refund the registration fee according to their T&Cs, but as we are a long term customer they’ll part refund it as a goodwill gesture…

So I am out of pocket, left with a domain we don’t want and without the ones that I did want – sorry ‘expressed an interest in’ – YEP, SUCKER!

Anybody else been screwed…?

Thanks all.