When submitting an open (unregistered) domain to a contest, there is always the possibility that this domain might get registered.
We recommend protecting your best names by registering them yourself. You can also submit your registered domains as Premium Domains.
Learn more about that here.
Our Role
The role of Atom in situations when a domain is registered is to investigate the report and follow up with CH's as per the process described below.
Our Process
With respect to Naming Contests, we have a standard process in place to support Creatives if one of the names they submit to a contest is registered while a contest is active, or shortly thereafter.
If you find that your name has been registered after submission to a contest, please follow these steps to report your domain registration.
Once we receive a report of domain registration, we follow the below outlined process:
We will first check if the "Who Is" information on domain matches the Contest Holder's information. If the information matches, we will send a notification to the CH reminding them of their commitment to compensate the creative if they registered the name.
If the "Who Is" information does not match, we will still send a notification to the CH as long as the entry was submitted less than 30 days ago to their contest. This notification will be first shown in the form of a popup in their contest page. If the CH does not respond to the popup notification, we will send them a follow-up email notification (as long as the CH has not opted out of receiving email notifications).
In case of #1 and #2, the CH is prevented from selecting a contest winner and closing the contest until they have contacted us about the reported domain.
If the CH acknowledges that they registered the name, we reserve the right to pause the contest until a bonus is sent by the CH to the creative, or a refundable deposit is sent to Atom (which would be payable to the creative if a different winner is selected). If the CH ends up picking the same name as winner, the deposit will be refunded back to the CH. Alternatively, if the CH is not interested in keeping the name, they have the option to transfer the domain to the Creative who submitted it to their contest.
We will not make any exceptions to this policy.
More than 100,000 names are submitted to Atom platform on a monthly basis. It is always the case that a percentage of these names will get registered after submission to a contests. We never automatically assume that if a name has been registered, it was done by the Contest Holder - as good names are being registered across the globe on a daily basis.
It is impossible to independently verify if a domain name was registered by the CH, because these registrations are done in third party websites.
Any public or private accusations that a CH is using your URL will not be tolerated, as these accusations cannot be confirmed and are in blatant contradiction of our goal of being a positive and supportive community.
Important Notes:
If the reported domain was entered in multiple contests, we only send the notification to the CH of the most recent contest (Note: Atom does not encourage creatives to submit names across multiple contests, as we strive to deliver unique names that align with a CH's Naming Brief).
A CH can opt out of receiving any future emails about domain registrations (as long as they explicitly confirm that they are aware of domain registration policy and they do not plan to register any names from the contest (other than contest winner).
If the registered domain is a minor variation of the winning name, it does not qualify for a bonus. For example, if the winner of a contest is Atom.com, minor variations such as Atom.net, TheAtom.com, Atom.com, etc., do not qualify for a bonus even if they were submitted by other creatives, because it is assumed that most businesses would end up registering these minor variations after selecting a name for their business.
All creatives have the ability to see contests where a domain registration has been reported by anyone else. This can be done by selecting a filter on Active Contests page. You can click on “Reported Domains” checkbox on the bottom left section of the Active Contests page. Please note, that the same name could be reported in multiple contests. For example, there have been cases where the same name XYZ.com was submitted by a creative in 35 contests. If it was reported in all contests, all 35 contests will show a reported domain.