Afternic has pretty much become a wholesale registration site, just due to the fact that you have to pay about $50 just for the priveledge of bidding, win or not. Then add escrow fees. Not very buyer friendly. I have sold some names there, but the last one I "sold" there never passed escrow sinced they closed their own escrow service and started using escrow.com. it sat in limbo for months and now I can't even modify or delete it because it's marked sold. It took days to get hold of a person (I contacted register.com to get an email contact), and afternic and escrow.com both said blamed the other (basically denied) the closing problem.
You cannot get a human to reply at afternic, which is very bad customer service.
It is true Register.com has announced the future closing of Afternic. here is the quote and the link on their investor relations site:
"Register.com also announced it will close its Afternic customer segment and as a result, the Company will have to write off goodwill in the third quarter. Due to the write-off of goodwill, the softness in revenues, increased penalty fees related to credit card charge-backs and refunds, and a potential increased bad debt reserve, the Company does not expect to remain profitable in the third quarter of 2002. "
http://investor.register.com/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=rcom&script=412&layout=-6&item_id=337013
There are also plenty of threads about this a few weeks ago if you search.
Some smaller independent listing sites will probably spring up since the two past powerhouses afternic and great domains have failed to change with the market.
