Here’s my take:
The domain aftermarket has a big problem… it exists. This market shouldn’t ever be allowed to exist in the first place. ICANN should’ve blocked this bullshit a long time ago and forced registrars to just let domains expire and free the space. Also add a few provisions about unused domain names and about selling them.
You must log in or register to comment.
The author has no idea how to get his audience on-side! He starts with bragging about his 6400% profit margin on domain he resold, in a market where there’s no customer value for middlemen.
At least antique dealers will identify pieces as rare, clean/restore them and put them for sale in a more visible place. Whereas domain reselling is about as ethical as ticket touting.
Domain squatting is incredibly scummy, but I have no idea how it would be possible to have any other system.
My understanding is that domains do expire unless you pay the fee to renew for another year.
Regarding unused domain names, how would anyone know if a particular name is being unused? Domain names are used for more things than browsable websites. You’d have to have a system that could determine if traffic is going to those names, which seems bad from a privacy standpoint and also pretty easy to script around.
My understanding is that domains do expire unless you pay the fee to renew for another year.
The problem is that this isn’t what happens today. If you register a domain and never pay for it again then providers will often renew the domain and keep it to themselves and try resell it later. This is one of the biggest issues in the domain name market and GoDaddy is one of the worst offenders.
Regarding unused domain names, how would anyone know if a particular name is being unused?
Yes that’s a good question but I’m sure that ICANN with all it’s wisdom and infinite resources and teams could define something reasonable. I believe the first step could be to simply make sure registrars can’t do what I describe before.
how would anyone know if a particular name is being unused?
I have a couple of nice domain hacks and I use them for email and random services I run so the root domain appeared to be abandoned. I received so many messages from people wanting to buy them I just started pointing them at other sites so they would stop hassling me. I’ve had one of these domains for nearly 20 years and it’s my main email address. I’m not selling because it would be a year long full time job just to update all my services 😅
I’m not an economics major, but maybe something like a blind auction every year, and if you owned the domain last year, you also have the option of matching the highest bidder to keep the domain.
The biggest flaw with a system like that is that it would still discourage trying to buy an already owned domain, since you could pay for it, but not actually get it if the owner exercises their matching right. But it would definitely discourage domain squatting since the more other people want your domain, the more you have to pay to keep it.
That sounds ripe for abuse. Say someone has a problem with me - if they wait long enough, they can now pay over the odds and effectively take over my website. Or get their friends to enter a bidding war and potentially cost me a lot of money.
This would turn the Internet into a hell scape if only because corporations could throw huge amounts of money around.
There would be incentive for the Pizza Huts and the Walmarts of the world to just assume control of the websites for any local competitors.
Oh no, speculators’ third party products don’t work. Anyway… get a real job fuckface.
And while we’re at it, so-called “premium” domains are a load of bullshit. My last name .net(which is not a common last name, by the way) is $2795 for the first month, because somebody with a solid gold dildo up their ass decided it should be so.
“premium” domains are usually domains that were registered by someone at some point and then the registrar kept it because some of their automated analysis decided your last name is shared by xyz people and the domain could be valuable.
Wait, is it bad that I purchased rights to 5 domains with my name on them but haven’t decided what to do with them yet so they’re just empty?
As long as you keep renewing them you should be fine.
Does anyone know of a list of TLDs that don’t allow reselling? I’d prefer to buy/lease one of those and let domain sharks play their own games.
Well ya, look at it, it’s a moldy loaf of bread!!!
IWONTT
Too easily gamed I think.
This is way to ranty. If you don’t like your domain provider get a new one. Additionally there are effectively a infinite amount of domain names so you can just buy one that is still cheap.
Hey, I’m not the one who typed it… but it’s annoying to see when a name you want is taken on all the major tlds because registrars are holding domains in hopes of selling them.
That’s fair but you can always choose something similar
