(OurGoods.org)

In what can only be a Christmas miracle, the domain registrar 1and1 has decided to return the domain OurGoods.org to the New York City-based barter startup. Renewal notices went straight to spam, and OurGoods forgot to renew their domain name for about $9; in retaliation, 1and1 blacklisted them. The cofounders begged, but customer service wouldn't listen: the domain had already been shuffled over to DomCollect, 1and1's partner, for resale.

“We hope that no one buys it and I don’t know why 1and1 doesn’t want to work with us," cofounder Caroline Woolard said at the time. "I was just telling them we are a nonprofit, it’s $9 a year, can we really just pay you $9? They say the grace period is over somehow and because we didn’t pay they want to blacklist us and just let it go up for grabs.”

But apparently persistence paid off. Out of the blue, 1and1 emailed OurGoods last week to say they could have the domain back. Provided they follow the necessary bureaucratic procedure, that is:

As your bill went unpaid for ongoing months, your account was terminated.  Domains in a canceled account do not renew.  The domain OurGoods.org had expired as has gone into the redemption period.  If you wish to retrieve the domain, we will require that you take the appropriate steps to have the domain restored.

Back in November, you attempted to redeem the domain, however, as explained by a 1&1 agent, we were unable to restore your domain at that time because you did not currently have an active account.  Please know that this does not mean that we are unwilling to redeem the domain for you, it simply means that you will need to create an account so the domain can be added to that account when restored.  This would also means that we will require a new redemption form using the information from your new account.

You may create an account by visiting order.1and1.com, or you may speak with a sales representative to assist you.  They can be reached Mon-Fri, 8AM-11PM EST at 1.877.461.2631.  Once a new account is created, please allow 6 hours for your new account information to be sent to you via email.  Once this information is received, you can use it to fill out a new redemption form.

Below is the URL to our Domain Redemption form.  The completed and signed form can be sent as an attachment in reply to this email, or faxed to 610.560.1501.

Ms. Woolard said the change of heart was a welcome surprise, but she's not quite sure what brought it on. "Absolutely NO idea, but I'm thinking they made sure to keep us happy after all the people who called on our behalf," she said in an email.

One of those advocates was Larry Erlich of DomainRegistry.com, who emailed Betabeat after our first story about the debacle. "I read the ourgoods.org story and it pissed me off," he said. "So I forwarded it to my contacts at ICANN the head of compliance [sic]. They are on it... I had been informing ICANN about this behavior in the past by registrars (competitors) which essentially isn't allowed." Registrars are supposed to return a domain if the failure to renew was unintentional.

Mr. Erlich said his lobbying was responsible for 1and1's reversal (Betabeat was unable to confirm this). And hey, maybe registrars are receptive to public opinion—what with GoDaddy switching its position on SOPA after an outcry and reprimand from Ashton Kutcher. Although 1and1 doesn't seem to mind its stack of files on RipoffReport.com or angry rants from French people.

OurGoods

"We unintentionally let a payment of $8.99 lapse, and they refuse to let us re-open our account. Instead, they are letting it sit with DomCollect and Sedo, showing horrible ads and making everyone who relies on our site crazy," Ms. Woolard said. In the meantime, OurGoods is at OurGoods.net.

In addition to breaking all their backlinks, the mistake could cost OurGoods much more. The site's up for some big grants right now, and the existence of the spammy OurGoods.org could confuse the process, she said.

"There's an ICANN website that says that you can get a domain back if you didn't pay a fee, but it was unintentional," she said. "Then you're allowed hopefully in a grace period to make up for it."

OurGoods is considering filing for arbitration with ICANN, but it's $1,300 and the startup has no money, she explained, with more than a slight hint of exhaustion. "We hope that no one buys it and I don't know why 1and1 doesn't want to work with us... I was just telling them we are a nonprofit, it's $9 a year, can we really just pay you $9 They say the grace period is over somehow and because we didn't pay they want to blacklist us and just let it go up for grabs in a month."

"Now we have to be a .net, which means everything we worked on with Google, all those links are just going to die and Google is going to think we're a spammer and we're not going to get any links through the internet anymore," she continued, sounding desperate.

After the incident, Ms. Woolard discovered other complaints about 1and1 across the internet. "It was kind of a bad decision on our part to be with such an inflexible registrar, but that was who was recommended to us," she said.

They went with GoDaddy for the .net, she said.

The owner of OurGoods.com has been trying to sell the domain to them for $1,000, which they would love to have, she said, but "we just dont have any money; it's all volunteer."

OurGoods has 3,000 registered users, although about a third use the site regularly. It features community projects in addition to one-for-one trades; a choreographer's skills for carpentry advice (yeah, actually), meal of local meat, grain, and produce for web development/social media skills; other offers include canning/preserving skills, "a car for transportation and a pretty flexible schedule," photography, video, editing, film scoring, drawing lessons, financial modeling, "I make bread." It is associated with the barter-for-teaching organization Trade School. It was founded in 2009 by Caroline Woolard, Rich Watts, Jen Abrams, Louise Ma and Carl Tashian.

OurGoods is probably just going to wait for the domain to come up for auction and then bid on it then, Ms. Woolard said, as advised by their lawyer.