After a lengthy complaints process raised by a competitor of Drop, the Licence Review Panel made their ruling that Drop did not breach any policies in their actions relating to this domain.
Read the Full review panel decision here.
A key note from the external review:
“Drop was entitled, and in fact obliged, to correct that error to ensure that the Registry Data was correct and reflected the grant of the Licence of superannuation.com.au to the Underbidder. Not only was Drop’s ability to do so not restricted by sections 2.18.2 to 2.18.4 but taking that action was consistent with the objects of the Licensing Rules.”
Background: The Complainant runs a competitive service to Drop’s Expired Domain Catcher service. For some time they have been banned from the Drop platform. Their ban is due to constant breaches of the Auction platforms terms, as they refuse to not publish other Auction winners bids, which are against the sites terms. To by pass their ban they created a brand new auction account 1 day before the auction, agreeing to the site terms in bad faith. Some would say hypocritical when they also do not disclose most of their own domains sales stating under NDA terms. One can only assume that their competitive agenda is the real reason for making such complaints.
The complainant was notified that their bid was removed just prior to the Drop time, due to their ban and ongoing term breaches. Due to an admin error, the Complainants bid was not fully removed from the system, and Drop had to make a correction minutes after the domain dropped.
Glad to see that the External Review Process confirmed both Drop’s actions and auDAs Internal Review of Drop’s actions to be within policies.
Drop has extended to the Complainant on multiple times to lift their ban. “Be professional and agree to the site terms like everyone else”, quote from the Drop Manager, as none of the Drop clients want their wholesale prices published.
