TechCrunch article questions Snap’s rebate requirements.

Given the bad taste Michael Arrington’s has in his mouth from his time in the domain name industry, he’s laying down the heat on Snapnames and its bidding scandal. Today he wrote a second article about the scandal, saying that SnapNames’ request that customers sign a waiver to get their rebate is not right.

I understand where he’s coming from, but I also see why SnapNames is requesting this. When you are part of a class action you always agree that the rebate or other compensation you get as a result is your only settlement, and waive rights to sue. Granted, this isn’t a class action and all we have is SnapNames’ story. So you might want to think about what happens if more issues come to light after you’ve signed the agreement.

I also want to clarify a couple things that Arrington discusses in his article.

1. The deletion of account history doesn’t seem to be related to the scandal. A number of people have reported that their account history at SnapNames prior to 2007 has been deleted. This is true, but old account data was archived long before this scandal. Given the events of the past week, I do think SnapNames should re-enable it. I’ve sent them a note asking for their position on it. [Update: I missed this post on DNN, which links to a forum post in which SnapNames does say it will bring back the entire account history. As I suspected, only showing two years worth of data is not a recent change. According to the post, Snap has only showed two years worth of data for the past four years.]

2. SnapNames did disclose the exact amount of revenue it gained from the nefarious bidding.

In today’s article, Arrington wrote:

SnapNames said only about 5% of total auctions were affected, but this is misleading. The top domains make up a substantial proportion of total revenue. So that 5% could easily have accounted for, say, much more than 50% of revenue. SnapNames was careful not to disclose the total dollar amounts involved, or even what percentage of overall auction revenue was affected.

In fact, they did release the actual amount of revenue, stating “The incremental revenue from the bidding represented approximately one percent of SnapNames auction revenues since 2005.”

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

Review and rate domain name parking companies at Parking Judge.

Related posts:

1. Poll: How SnapNames Scandal Affects You
2. SnapNames Reinstates Auction History Back to 2004
3. SnapNames Employee Bid in Domain Auctions, Cleanup in Progress

It’s clear that a lot of people lost trust yesterday. Here are a few poll questions to see how the Snapnames bidding scandal will change your behavior.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Also, if you’ve already received notice of your rebate, please leave a comment with the amount.

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

Review and rate domain name parking companies at Parking Judge.

Related posts:

1. In SnapNames Scandal, Conspiracy Theorists Were (Sort of) Right

It’s clear that a lot of people lost trust yesterday. Here are a few poll questions to see how the Snapnames bidding scandal will change your behavior.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Also, if you’ve already received notice of your rebate, please leave a comment with the amount.

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

Review and rate domain name parking companies at Parking Judge.

Related posts:

1. In SnapNames Scandal, Conspiracy Theorists Were (Sort of) Right