DropCatch

TurnCommerce began its domain acquisition and management business in 2003. DropCatch later became one of its domain businesses, alongside registrar NameBright and domain marketplace HugeDomains.⁠[1][2]

An early DropCatch announcement introduced domain detail pages and shortened auctions from five days to three. A bid in the final five minutes moved the closing time to five minutes after that bid; further late bids could extend it again.⁠[3]

In May 2014, DropCatch was still in a limited beta. Its catching software had already served businesses including HugeDomains; the platform offered that capability to external customers and placed acquired domains with NameBright.⁠[4]

The standard successful backorder cost $59 at the time. A captured domain with several backorders entered a public auction that other customers could also join. The Bespoke.com auction ended on May 12 at $18,805.⁠[4]

DropCatch announced an open beta. New users could sign in with a NameBright account and set a public auction alias before backordering or bidding. The announcement described several months of work on pricing, auction rules and stability before wider access.⁠[5]

TurnCommerce added 299 registrar accreditations during Christmas week, bringing its network to at least 452. This was about 31% of the 1,456 ICANNICANNICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a nonprofit public benefit corporation founded in California in 1998 and headquartered in Los Angeles. It coordinates the Internet’s unique identifiers worldwide, including the Domain Name System (DNS), IP addresses, and protocol parameters, and develops generic top-level domain policy through a multistakeholder model; in October 2016, the U.S. Government’s stewardship of the IANA functions passed to the global Internet community, and in 2026 ICANN opened the second application round of its New gTLD Program.Open the full entry accreditations counted at the time; the percentage described accreditations, not market share by registered domains.⁠[6]

DropCatch introduced an invitation-only Discount Club. Bulk customers could name a price of $15–$58, including the first year at NameBright. It used no auction and ranked below regular backorders and corporate-partner orders.⁠[7]

By October 2015, the DropCatch network had added another 300 ICANN-accredited registrars, reaching 752. The expansion supported competition to register domains after their deletion.⁠[8]

DropCatch added .cc and .tv backorders, then priced at $59 on success. Multiple backorders led to a three-day public auction. Both extensions supported backordering and bidding APIs but were not included in the Discount Club at launch.⁠[9]

The Discount Club opened to all users. The highest offer won, with earlier backorders breaking ties.⁠[10]

DropCatch added regular .org backorders alongside .com, .net, .cc and .tv, initially at $59. A captured .org domain with two or more backorders entered an auction. Users could identify candidates through search or downloadable lists.⁠[11]

The DropCatch network added 500 accreditations, reaching at least 1,252, approximately 43% of the ICANN total at the time. The new entities used numbered names from DropCatch.com 1046 LLC through DropCatch.com 1545 LLC.⁠[12]

Using ICANN’s fee schedule, the additional accreditations were estimated to require $1.75 million in application fees and $2 million in annual fixed fees. These were external fee-based estimates, not figures from company financial statements.⁠[12]

By August 2017, DropCatch had opened its invitation-only Marketplace for Sellers, allowing owners to auction their existing domains. An early example was the no-reserve auction of 888733.com, expanding the platform beyond auctions of newly caught domains.⁠[13]

DropCatch disclosed an internal audit identifying 297 auctions whose second-highest bidders were later suspended for non-payment. It announced recalculation of their price effects and credits for affected winners, without asserting that every payment failure was malicious.⁠[14]

The same announcement proposed revised payment deadlines, additional security measures and access for original participants to bidding histories preceding re-auctions. The company cited international payments, bank transfers and declined cards among reasons for some failures to pay.⁠[14]

DropCatch introduced Pre-Release auctions for domains that had expired at NameBright but had not yet been returned to the registry. At launch, bids started at $10 including the first registration year; auctions could last up to ten days and required account verification.⁠[15]

DropCatch notified affected users that a bidder it identified as fraudulent had been suspended. Affected auctions would restart with previous bids voided.⁠[16]

DropCatch Marketplace stopped accepting listings directly from external registrars. Sellers had to register their domains with NameBright before listing them, a requirement retained in the platform’s current marketplace documentation.⁠[17][18]

TurnCommerce co-founder and COO Jeff Reberry submitted competition concerns about Donuts’ Dropzone registry service to ICANN on August 27. On September 24, ICANN replied that its RSEP review, including the concerns raised, found no competition issues requiring referral to a relevant competition authority.⁠[19]

Mine.com sold for $680,000 in a DropCatch expired-domain auction. Bidders exceeding $500,000 had to undergo additional verification; three crossed that threshold, and the user with alias 17excom won. Earlier that year, Spend.com had sold for $802,500 on the platform.⁠[20]

By September 2026, TurnCommerce had added 300 accreditations, named DropCatch.com 1546 LLC through 1845 LLC. The brand’s total exceeded 1,500, about 47% of the 3,323 accreditations then listed by ICANN. This measured accreditation count, not domain market share.⁠[21]

As Verisign moved the .com and .net drop window to approximately 12:00 UTC, DropCatch moved the cutoff for placing, changing or cancelling those backorders to 11:30 UTC. The UTC cutoff stays fixed year-round, while local times change in regions observing daylight saving time.⁠[22][23]

The change did not alter other extensions’ cutoffs. API backorders followed the same new deadline without requiring an API interface change.⁠[22][24]

The IANA registrar register updated that day listed DropCatch.com 1845 LLC as accredited under identifier 4889, using NameBright’s RDAP address. TurnCommerce, Inc. DBA NameBright.com held identifier 1441. A numbered company-name suffix and an IANA registrar identifier are distinct identifiers.⁠[25]

Users can search pending-delete domains and place backorders without an upfront charge. A backorder does not guarantee capture. A successful catch with one regular backorder is delivered at the backorder price; multiple backorders lead to a public auction. Acquired domains are managed through NameBright accounts.⁠[26][27]

Auctions are open to verified users, including those who did not place the original backorders. Proxy bidding sets the winner’s price at the second-highest bid plus the prescribed increment. A new high bid in the final five minutes extends the auction by five minutes.⁠[28]

Discount Club retains the priority tiers described above.⁠[29]

The platform’s FAQ states that the company, affiliates and employees do not participate directly or indirectly in public auctions.⁠[30]

DropCatch provides an authenticated developer API for its platform. Its documentation recommends V2 and identifies V1 as deprecated for future removal. Some lists use next and previous cursors to retrieve further results.⁠[24]

DropCatch handles domain acquisition and auctions, NameBright provides registration and management, and HugeDomains sells domains. The parent’s domain-management and DNS figures cover the group’s operations.⁠[2][1]

DropCatch: Official website: https://www.dropcatch.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[31]

TurnCommerce: Official website: https://www.turncommerce.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

NameBright: Official website: https://www.namebright.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[31]

HugeDomains: Official website: https://www.hugedomains.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[31]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/dropcatch-com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[32]