Domain Renewals

Domain Renewals
Move By: Weblo.com Member Support 16-Jun-2008


Hi Weblonians,

We have received member support emails recently asking about domains and more specifically domain renewal.

Weblo does not believe in negative option billing so we give our members the option of renewing their domains every 12 months. We send out reminder emails for each domain you own leading up to the end of your 12 month ownership.

There is a chance some members may not see these emails because some email filters may direct emails from "The Weblo Team" to junk or spam folders. So please check those other folders periodically to ensure you don't miss emails from "The Weblo Team."

You can also specify in your email settings that emails from "The Weblo Team" are OK to go straight to your inbox.

Thanks!


Can someone please explain the above to me ? Are we going to lose the domain if we dont pay ?

They still didnt explain anything or make anything clear. I still have only gotten an email for one single domain of mine and I check the junk folder of my email everyday too. I guess I will only lose that one domain then? lol.

Check all of your domains that you bought and you'll find they have set the date of expiry, for those registered more than a year ago, at July 1st.

If they go ahead and follow through there will be a lot of people caught off guard and some great domains will re-enter the market. Those with VIP memberships will have a distinct advantage. Those who are unaware will be most disadvantaged.

Those who don't care...still won't...^0^

There has always been a renewal date. Before it started showing July 1st they all showed May something. The point is that when it gets to be a few days before the expiration date they push it back again by a month or two. On June 29th it might all the sudden show Sept 1st 2008.

I think they are weighing the situation.

Some potential issues
For instance what happens if a weblo player uploads a piece of artwork to which they are licensed for web usage, but not necessarily for transfer. If the domain is not sold, then weblo may have issues with assignability or resale of this artwork, regardless of their terms of service.

Content removal on transfer:
Despite their terms of service and user agreements, there rights may or may not be enforceable within certain jurisdiction due to severability and conflicts with local regulation. This is especially tricky in Intellectual Property cases which have widely varying rules, depending on country of origin. Additionally, there may be issues with destroying created content, within the framework of a virtual cash economy.

Despite similar clauses, there have been rulings favorable to the players involved in other games where original content comes into play. The owners of the online game camelot for instance, prevailed in the united states, but their alleged rights were struck down in china. Since weblo is an international community, this may create some difficulties.

Weblo's agreement states this (although going on to claim publishing and other rights)
"Except for the personal information and content submitted by users of the Site, the Site , all other content and software included therein (including, without limitation, the virtual domain names, properties and celebrity fan sites) are owned by Weblo or its licensors, and are protected by United States, Canadian and other international intellectual property laws"

In this instance, they appear to be following a similar path to that of Linden Labs in allowing created content to remain the intellectual property of the players. Bragg vs. Linden labs is proceding, as of may 2008, with an injunction by linden labs to dismiss. I believe there are other suits of this nature pending, as well.

Regardless, the field of virtual property law and users vs. site owners rights is far from settled. This is even more true when actual financial compensation is involved and the assets themselves are of fluctuating value.

Granted, this is all speculation and I certainly claim absolutely no legal credentials whatsoever, but am merely speculating casually about the relevence of these incidents.

My instinct, however, is that pending further resolution and definition within the realm of IP law, weblo would be taking an unnecessary risk in following this particular path. This coupled with the fact that there are some very good reasons not to invoke this particular rule, in particular the risk of alienating many of the players who invest time and resources into the game as well as promoting weblo from various outside resources and websites.

Of course, one can never know what decisions will ultimately be reached. However, weblo has pushed this timeline back on more than one occaision, and are presumably weighing the relative merits of each possible path.

Speaking as only one player, I can definitely say that such action will cease any activity such as service renewals or further registrations, on my part. In that event, I may also be interested in discussing the issues of weblo's policies with a wider range of audiences. It is certainly not difficult to express dissatisfaction with services on the internet, if one is inclined to do so.

At this point, it is all speculation, and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, I am suspending any significant time investments in the game until after July 1st, as that is apparently the potential date of implementation of this policy. I will also wait on re-initiating communications with weblo until I see how this matter is resolved. I certainly do not see any incentive to add content to weblo's servers, given the situation.

All that said, I think the risks of expiring domains by Weblo, outweighs potential benefits they may gain in such an action. My guess is that it won't be implemented. If they choose to do so, they will definitely be relegating domains to the worst asset class, with the exception of a relatively small number of sites. Since this is one of the selling points in having a VIP account, this may have secondary implications.

For those that chose to remain with the game, the obvious strategic direction by a player would be to concentrate on a very limited number of domains, rather than attempting to develop a wide variety of content. Domains may eventually become a viable investment in bulk, but given the growth rate of weblo, this is likely to be in the distant future. They have already crippled the supply and demand aspect of domains, by attempting to fully replicate the domain availability of the actual internet. For this to succeed as a speculative venture in any "monopoly " sense, they would need equivelant traffic to that of the majority of the entire internet community. Regardless of how successful the site becomes, I think it is safe to speculate that everyone on the internet will probably not be registering weblo subdomains.

Enough rambling. All of the above is just opinion. In a couple of weeks we will know where they stand.

I belive Shaper has that pretty much bang on, lets just hope the Weblo Gods care enough to be reading this!
I do wonder just how bad the cash flow is getting for Weblo to even consider invoking this rule? This will only effect long standing members, who are still active within Weblo and who bought a domain more than a year ago. Surely these are the bed rock of the Weblo membership, the people who have stuck with it through the multiple page changes and other general mess ups!
Anyway, as we all know they will do what they wish......

Continued:

Not that I'm bitter, a bit irritable at the moment, perhaps. I agreed to the terms and took that risk when I purchased my domains. Just don't like having the perpetual axe over my head. Considering that redirection isn't a viable option for domains (requires type in traffic, like thats going to happen), I do feel that they were misrepresented when I purchased them and signed up for a VIP account to do so, en-masse.

Eating has somewhat settled my attitude about it Never respond to a provocative post when hungry.

At the end of the day, they will do whatever they decide to do. I strongly advocate permanent domains or a substantial increase in their functionality. The legal and reputation risks they take are strictly theirs to take. That it significantly impacts large portfolio owners is irrelevant, I am sure they can find some way to offset the lost revenue. Perhaps another VIP member will decide to pick up any domains I drop, if so, good luck to them.

EDIT
in response to simultanious post...
Financial considerations may be a factor, or it may just be that they figured how to correctly implement it. I think they are going to cost themselves a lot of landing pages. The quality of those pages may improve somewhat, but that will be offset by the large number of autogenerated pages they are creating. Ultimately the value of a social networking site is tied to the efforts of the core users. Provoking that group could have other unforseen consequences which are not easily read into a cost/benefits analysis.

Long term users have developed some skillsets and promotional capabilities which may have other implications. A simple reduction in enthusiasm by existing players has effects which are difficult to quantify. Even if the players, as a whole, remain relatively apathetic about the renewals thing, they will factor it into their purchasing patterns. The amount of lost revenue from external promotion of weblo is an example of difficult to quantify effects. Some weblo members have become quite adept at directing traffic towards weblo, should they choose to use those skills to promote their own sites or another community, then the intangible loss to weblo is far greater than would immediately be apparent.

After a night of sleep, calming down somewhat.

Need more information though, before knowing which direction to proceed. I certainly don't see the point in developing pages that I may lose control over within a short time frame....

There may be something to be said for having a few high quality sites that are promoted heavily for the pass-go aspect than a lot of sites which are built for other purpouses. Realistically it will take a couple of weeks to organize and refine the suggestions anyhow. Gives me an opportunity to see which way the cards will land. I just tend to get frustrated when I see the potential for brilliance in weblo, and then a series of moves which undermines the potential of the site. You may notice that I am not going to release my cities, properties and celebs, which have built in long-term value. Very few domains, under the current renewal and extension structure fit that description.

Since properties and domains are effectively quite similar, they are creating a strong emphasis to shift towards property assets as the lifetime ownership significantly outweighs the naming benefits of domains. That may be their intent. Without a challenge system, this still remains problematic.

Speaking of properties, as relevant to the discussion... notice that they are unable to strip properties from players, reason for not enforcing challenges. This may be highly relevant to the domain issues and explain why they keep pushing back renewal dates. If they are willing to do that, then they may be willing to re-assign properties that are effectively challenged. These are very similar situations, actually.

If they actually think they have the legal grounds to go ahead with the domain renewal thing, then they are probably considering themselves to be in similar territories regarding properties. Really hard to call it at this point, but there are implications either way.

well looks like our fear is here . First time I received an email like this one .


Your ownership of the domain name(s) below will expire in 30 days. You must renew your ownership before 2008-07-17 or else the domain name(s) will be available to other members for purchase.

well above says it all . time to see more people get mad and leave

I remember those from a while back. Ya, sounds like they are intent on putting the squeeze on. Wonder how they are going to handle existing content?

Intellectual property issues aside, I wonder if they have considered how this will affect them long term. If they eventually get their act together and start creating commercial tools, what happens when a site with a shopping cart module changes ownership unexpectedly. I say unexpectedly, because if they are going by their previous model, the site doesn't technically change owners until someone actually registers the expired site.

At any rate, I think they are making a bad move from a PR standpoint. Its not like people are currently scrapping over a few choice domains at the moment. I mean, if they take UltimateSiteName.com there is nothing to keep the owner from registering UltimateSiteName.imaginary extension and competing on absolutely equal ground. Bad enough that they didn't do a good job of controlling supply and demand, but making a move like this before setting that up is downright idiocy.

All that is likely to happen, is that people will let any site that isn't a run-away success expire. Weblo loses potential transaction fees. They will alienate their base to an undetermined degree. This will just force players to take advantage of the "trial domain". If it hits it costs a buck, if it doesn't it can be let go at no cost. This is a particularly dangerous combination for them in terms of any ability to generate renewal fees or stimulate the internal auction market.

Clarifies my own strategies, at any rate. Won't kill me to write off the majority (98%) of my domain portfolio, not like I have time to keep up on it anyhow. I don't see ever actually purchasing a domain that doesn't stand a reasonable past go chance after 30 days. Probably save me quite a bit of money in the long run.

[EDIT]
Actually this works quite well for me. I don't need a VIP account, until and unless I get something approaching pass go status. The main benefit of a VIP account is cheap domain registration. Ability to do large numbers of transactions is not important without a bulk auction tool. The other benefit is cost reduction for cities and states. The good ones are pretty much wiped out, so its all player to player now anyways. Nothing there to justify VIP status.

Now instead of paying a couple hundred a year for VIP and another few hundred on registrations, I can simply take a basic account do some domain sampling and only pay for VIP if it looks like it will be profitable for the pass go effects. Also saves me the headache of trying to manage a few hundred domains.

The only potential benefit to weblo, that I see is that content sites will mostly be traffic generators. Fair trade.

Kinda sucks to think that I have to write off a $700 investment, but then again that will save me from chasing it with a deeper out of pocket investment and recurring annual fees. I might be able to live with that.

are the buffaloing or are they expiring??? and what does this mean...

Letter they sent to me kind of confirmed it ( in my eyes). If they are bluffing ill rather loose an anty then a big pot , so Just in case I am going to renew most of mine .

i got that same kind of letter a long time ago and the domains still never expired then, lol.

he who laughs last laughs the hardest... But i bet you renew lasvegas .com for a couple years .

oh u know better than that,,like nr always says if he wanted a weblo domain he'd just buy weblo,,the whole company...lololol..dam wareman nabed my ciara.tv..gloves off...

latest developments kinda confirm that they'll be enforcing the domain renewals..doesn't it?

who knows///

Everyone's in panic mode now, lol. Sunny days selling for .25-.75 each. I think I will hold 20-40 domains. If they stopped wideband registration, and is confirmed, might hold a few more. I think they are looking at the long term, also I think the search position may have some uses. Lot depends on how they handle things, will keep a foot on each side of the door for now.