Sedo removes Obama & McCain domains from its marketplace
In yet another hasty move, Sedo has inexplicably begun to remove political domains from its marketplace. It is uncertain how far the pattern searcher reaches, however Carolyn from the support department mentioned that their legal department decided to remove domains that contain the name of the US political candidates, Obama and McCain. I expect that the black-listing filter contains the names of Palin and Biden as well.
Now, I am not an opportunist that’d go around registering dozens of names of every possible combination for the party tickets, like others did. I own two domains, both hand-registered for their brandability value: Obamagram.com and Oreobama.com
Sedo’s email was yet another blow in the face of the growing number of users that choose the Sedo marketplace as a selling platform:
We are writing to inform you that the domains listed below have been suspended from Sedo’s services because this domain(s) is a potential violation of Sedo’s policy against domains that include obscene or illegal subject matter. While Sedo strives to protect our users rights to exercise free speech and maintain a marketplace with a vibrant and diverse collection of domain names, we apologize any inconvenience that this may cause.
It’s definitely ironic to see the words “free speech” and “blacklisted” in the same email. Currently there are dozens if not hundreds of political domains on Sedo’s marketplace so the blacklisting process has just begun.
Time to move your domains to Parked.com or elsewhere.