Planet Earth Internet established in 1997 have lost their domain planetearth.co.uk through a series of bad luck and unfortunate coincidences:-
A history of use of the domain www.planetearth.co.uk
1997 - 1st registered by Tony Mackenzie (aka Tony Stirling) and maintained and renewed by him ever since
1997 to 2007 - used in conjunction with the Nominet tag PLANETEARTH as a hosting and domain provider together with other Internet services and advertised as "Planet Earth Internet and the Wizigroup of websites." The evidence of this can be seen by using the archived history at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.planetearth.co.uk
1997 to 2008 - Other group domains added such as planetearthinter.net, hostingonplanetearth.com, planetearthcalling.com, 24hr-shop.net, easy-offshore-solutions.com, wizigames.co.uk, Wizibiz.net, WiziPay.co.uk and other domains Many of these other domains were promoted together with planetearth.co.uk and maintained links to and from the other group websites. There are still many links pointing to planetearth.co.uk from group websites as well as from external third party websites which have been established over many years.
late 2007 - The company was temporarily short of funds and reluctantly had to consider the possibility of a sale of the company including the domain assets as a package. However, this idea was abandoned when alternative funding was in sight to enable new development of the company and domain. There was never any intention to separate the domain from the company. There was a temporary period where the domain was used purely to act as a referral website for other Planet Earth Internet services and to maintain the many email accounts used under planetearth.co.uk which have now been lost to us.
Circumstances of the loss of www.planetearth.co.uk
1. A new address meant that we did not receive a written reminder of the domain expiry.
2. The domain expiry coincided with a server change being planned for the domain and at the same time Tony Mackenzie being involved in a serious car accident resulting in hospitalisation and many months recuperation. At the same time his computer was destroyed in the accident and caused associated delay and problems with changing over all profiles from one server to another and receiving emails including those from Nominet.
3. When these problems were fixed and the final email came through advising that the domain had been cancelled Tony Mackenzie immediately advised Nominet that renewal was required and this was within a few hours of the expiry. Nominet advised back that it was too late as the domain had already been re-registered. This re-registration took place within microseconds of the expiration and was therefore obviously done by the new registrant using specialist software.
4. At no time have we had any intention of separating the domain name from the company and at no time have we had any intention of willingly relinquishing the domain which has always been in our control and regularly maintained and renewed by us until the recent unfortunate circumstances. The domain is intrinsically connected with the other domains held and is a major component of the established brands and trading activities of the company.
Our opinion of these circumstances
1. We believe that Nominet should, under such circumstances, give a long standing domain owner the opportunity of positively agreeing to any relinquishment before finally removing it from that owner's control. Furthermore, where that owner has advised of their wish to renew a domain within hours of a final expiry notice then those wishes and intent should be considered in any dispute procedure.
2. We believe that the new owner makes a business out of this type of domain acquisition and where a longstanding previous owner has clearly demonstrated brand association and intent to keep the domain this type of acquisition should not be allowed.
3.Legal action is now being pursued to recover the domain and a notice to this effect has been sent to the new registrant.
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