1
HN, help me out here: *Is Aquarium.tv registered or not*? Because the NIC.tv WHOIS service operated by GoDaddy says it's a "Reserved Domain Name", but GoDaddy's Domain Broker Service says it's owned by a "third party". Those things can't both be true, right?
Anyway, here's the letter I just sent to Tuvalu. Who knows if anything will come of it. I don't think they have much of a staff.
> To whom it may concern at the Godaddy Registry and the Tuvalu Ministry of Justice, Communications and Foreign Affairs,
> I'm writing to express a concern about the inaccuracy of WHOIS data returned by the .tv registry. For the last few weeks, I have been making inquiries about the purchase of the domain Aquarium.tv. (You see, I'm running a company at Aquareum.tv, and lots of people are likely to type the name in the other way.) A WHOIS lookup performed at https://whois.nic.tv/ returns the following response for that domain:
> Reserved Domain Name
> This response is generally used to indicate that a domain is reserved by the registry — in this case, either GoDaddy or Tuvalu MJCFA — either permanently or as a "Premium" name to be sold at a higher price. So far, there's nothing unusual happening.
> However, I recently paid GoDaddy $119.99 for their Domain Broker Service for the domain anyway, to see if anything could be done. [Redacted] at GoDaddy has informed me that the owner of the domain is a "third party completely separate from us", and that they would be willing to sell me the domain for $10,000 USD. Now we have hit a contradiction. Aquarium.tv cannot be a "Reserved Domain Name" and owned by a "third party" at the same time. Which is it? *Is Aquarium.tv registered or not?*
> My concern is from the outside, it generates the appearance that GoDaddy themselves is reserving this domain name, while fraudulently claiming that a third party owns it for the purpose of selling it at a higher price. But I'm sure there's an innocent explanation — perhaps the WHOIS data is just inaccurate for some reason?
> Thank you for your time, > Eli Mallon
Reserved Domain Name
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2024-08-29T17:48:44Z <<<
> Broker: "I heard back from the domain owner and they are willing to sell which is great news. They are looking for $10,000 USD for the name."
Okayyy.
> Me: I’m a little confused who the current owner is. The domain says it’s reserved by the registry. Does GoDaddy own it?
> Broker: No, GoDaddy is the registrar the domain is registered with. The domain is owned by a third party apart from GoDaddy.
So like. Either the WHOIS registry is lying or the broker is lying, right? It can't both be a "Reserved Domain Name" and "owned by a third party." That "ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form" emphasizes they don't have jurisdiction over ccTLDs, but I guess I hope there'd be some recourse for straight-up falsifying a WHOIS entry? Maybe not.
Here's the part that complicates things. Just who is the .tv registrar, anyway? According to Wikipedia, it's... GoDaddy!
> As Verisign opted not to renew its contract, on 14 December 2021, GoDaddy signed a contract with the government of Tuvalu to manage .tv registrations, increasing yearly payments to the government of Tuvalu to $10 million. In 2023, an agreement between the Government of Tuvalu and the GoDaddy Company outsourced the marketing, sales, promotion and branding of the .tv domain to the Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation, which established a .tv Unit.
The only charitable interpretation I can think of is that the "third party" in question is this Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation and they're the ones on the other end of the negotiation?
TLDR: Notoriously shady company is probably lying to me to make money