Fuck Domainparkers
indiehackers.com
indiehackers.com
"A complaint may be submitted by any person who has a sufficient interest in the outcome of the case. The chairman of the Complaints Board decides whether the complainant has a sufficient interest.
The Complaints Board decides whether the registration of a domain name is to be maintained, deleted, suspended or transferred to the complainant or to a natural or legal person appointed by the complainant. In addition, the Complaints Board can confirm, cancel, change or refer back a decision made by DK Hostmaster/DIFO about compliance with the terms and conditions of business (”Terms and conditions for the right of use to a.dk domain name”)." (from the official page: https://www.domaeneklager.dk/en)
We've used the board in our business once. When we first started our SaaS the domain name we wanted was already taken by another person who seemed to use it for something genuine. So we contacted him/her and decided to wait. In the meantime, a competitor managed to contact the other owner directly and bought the domain name. He then changed the site into one big ad+redirect for his own competing service. We complained to the board, and presented our arguments(+screenshots). He did the same, and we won. The domain was transferred free-ofcharge to us, and we've owned it since.
DK's a small country, and something similar might not work for larger countries, but it does limit the domainparking issue. I'm a big fan of it!
I fail to understand this mentality. It's extremely common, of course, but I just can't wrap my head around it.
Private ownership becomes more and more challenged these years. The original comment is set in Denmark. I am also Danish, and I can verify that we have another view on ownership than what you experience in the US.
I'd argue that, since there's a limited amount of useful - domain-wise - words in the English dictionary, the number of available domains are bound to run dry faster if domainparking is not discouraged somehow. One might argue that the new TLD's are merely a 'bandaid' on a systemic problem with domains not being released properly, when no longer in proper use.
What exactly is difficult to understand here?
Actually, the whole set of up all laws derives from people with guns. Like, if there was no government, then we probably wouldn't have the internet, so domain names couldn't be taken away.
Like, are you saying that rights of property are more fundemental than government?
That seems like an odd argument, given that rights to property would seem to derive from government, at least in the modern world.
Yeah, this is the fundamental disconnect I have with (apparently) most people. Rights come from God. The idea that they come from governments is, in the words of a famous person, "not even wrong".
Anyway, this was an informative exchange. I learned that I'm in a minority, at least in this corner of the world :)
Please objectively prove the existence of the specific God from which you assert that all rights derive.
"The answer is that a reasonable person is a person who believes what Augustine believes and who, like Augustine, can only hear assertions contrary to that belief as absurd."
I genuinely see opinions different from mine as absurd. As in, "you cannot possibly believe this, which means you are lying" absurd. It's why I generally dismiss the common saying "do not attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence". NOBODY is that incompetent, and therefore whatever I disagree with is in fact malice.
I realize it's a minority opinion. I am fine with that situation, though I continue to be surprised when people disagree :)
[1] https://www.firstthings.com/article/1996/02/001-why-we-cant-...
Instead governments and NGOs manage limited "intellectual property" rights on DNS servers everyone agrees to connect to so the internet can actually be useful and not a free-for-all. The same applies to copyrights and patents. There is no natural right to exclusive ownership of an idea or written text. These things are "naturally" meant to be copied. Intellectual property "rights" are entirely constructed by government decree.
Someone bought the right to use a specific domain from a specific domain name provider. It was a private transaction between two parties, freely agreed to between them.
There is no "theft". Your whole understanding of this issue is absurd.
"Rights" are more properly understood as "a social agreement among people of a culture". If a culture doesn't value something, no rights for it exist. When cultures intersect, "rights" get real muddy real fast.
If my rule book says women are second class citizens, then is that just it? They have no rights? Or if my rule book says homosexuality is bad, but another interpretation of the rule book says its fine, then who's rule book is correct? Who settles that argument? Government.
Only other answer is a holy war and the survivors rule book is supreme. Until the next holy war.
Some do believe property rights exist independent of government (and existed before the concept of governments, as webs of individual agreements between people with no over-arching enforcement authority, i.e. "This belongs to me because if you try to take it from me I will kill you. That belongs to you because you would do the same to me. We have an understanding between us, but is an understanding between two people a 'government'?").
I do see how someone with, say, more adversarial US background may have a different opinion.
Our product: A was a direct competitor to the other product: B. We tried to purchase domain: C - without any luck, we could not get in touch with the owner since he did not reply to the publicly listed email address.
B's owner(our competitor) purchased domain C from it's owner; B was better at location contact-information I guess.
So suddenly domain C contained logo, image, and redirect to product B; and that was when we complained. We had no intention(or right) to complain when domain C was still in use by its original owner.
It would be a lot different if this was say; a twitter-handle or an ICQ-number (like in the old days where the simple ICQ numbers could be sold for a lot of money), but the Internet is so close to being a public utility that it should be operated as such, and not like a town in the Wild West....
Owning real estate isn't a fundamental right or need either. That doesn't mean property rights have no relevance or value simply because of their "artificiality". Property rights exist whether it is for houses or for domain names.
>>The entire history of the Internet, and related inventions, are also filled with a lot of taxpayer funding(CERN, DARPA). IMO it's a flaw in the system that allowed domainparking in the first-place, there should have been a built-in way to mitigate that issue.
DARPA was no longer involved with the internet/ARPANET by 1984. CERN had nothing to do with the Web besides the fact that one of its physicists made a GUI and a markup language. They both have nothing to do with DNS, URLs/URI, or IANA/ICANN. SRI/INTERNIC, a private research institute, was responsible for it's creation. As far as domainparking is concerned, the built-in limitation used to be the number of IPv4 addresses. But with IPv6, the point is made moot.
It kinda does, actually. Without the existence of a state enforcing said property rights by threat of monopolized violence, any sort of land "ownership" beyond physical occupation is meaningless; there would be nothing stopping someone else from inhabiting "your" land unless you're able and willing to infringe on their rights to life and liberty.
Given that dependence on the state, land "ownership" is naturally subject to its whims.
Then by your standards, a state would be just as artificial. Without the existence of a sufficient number of individuals capable and invested in engaging in violence for the defense of property, any concept of a state would be just that: a concept. An imaginary plaything. Enforcement of property rights can only come from people, not papers or buildings. And since a people precede a state, so to do their rights to own property.
>> There would be nothing stopping someone else from inhabiting "your" land unless your able and willing to infringe on their rights to life and liberty.
You're contradicting yourself. If one owns land, no one else has any right to life or liberty with respect to it. In other words, your rights end where mine begin.
Proof of this is the fact that (contiguous) United States isn't bordered by Mexican Gulf, the Pacific Ocean, and the 49th parallel because nature or belief willed it. It's there because people physically occupied territory long enough to obtain legitimacy, people purchased other colonial territories (i.e Alaska, Colonial Louisiana), or people negotiated treaties that says they owns certain areas. None of this is any different from how ordinary people obtain or historically obtained ownership despite your claim of insufficiency in their case. If that's so, what makes it be inherently different for a so-called state?
Nothing stops Canada from invading a la 1812 except for pieces of paper that merely claim it "can't". Canada chooses not to, not because it lacks a dedicated army with sufficient capability to capture some land, but because because it obtains benefits from an alliance and because provoking a potential retaliatory occupation by it's nearest neighbor isn't currently in the country's personal interest as a result of what violence would likely ensue.
Ownership is not a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state. It's not even granted. Individuals have those rights to begin with. It is the exercise of those rights to pursue either agreement or defense that demonstrate ownership.
Indeed it would be.
> And since a people precede a state, so to do their rights to own property.
Except that the concept of private land ownership without a state has yet to be demonstrated, specifically because said private land ownership is wholly a function of the state.
> If one owns land, no one else has any right to life or liberty with respect to it.
Says who? There's a reason why the rights to "life, liberty, and property" are in that order: property is meaningless without life and liberty, and liberty is in turn meaningless without life.
And further, because the state - like the notion of land ownership - is artificial, your ownership of land is at the mercy of those fellow members of society and their collective conjuring of the state - and its powers to enforce ownership over imaginary concepts like parcel boundaries - into existence. That said society happens to currently tolerate your exclusive claim on some parcel of land (without receiving anything even remotely resembling reciprocal compensation for the incurred opportunity costs) is a privilege, and one which can be revoked when it conflicts with the rights to life and liberty.
> Ownership is not a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state.
With respect to land, unless you live in Bir Tawil or have decided to invest in deep sea and deep space real estate, said ownership quite literally is a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state. That the state itself exists (ostensibly) as an action of the people it governs doesn't change the fact that your "ownership" of land is more of a lease, and that a superior landlord - the state - continues to exist.
If you disagree, then you're encouraged to brush up on your understanding of the difference between "fee simple" and "allodial" titles - hint: if you own land in a common law jurisdiction like the US, your land is almost certainly under the former kind of title, not the latter.
The terms of that domain ownership included the possibility of losing it in the manner described. The buyer knew those terms and implicitly agreed to them at time of purchase. It's all perfectly libertarian.
Or do you think you know better, and want to limit what kinds of contracts/ownership terms people can enter? And enforce those limits with men with guns?
Are you interpreting it the same way as me? If so, yes the domain was indeed taken from the person squatting it (but actually worse than squatting, since it took you somewhere else than where you as a consumer wanted to go). And that's something I'm entirely ok with, and in fact applaud.
Gold and bitcoins are not problematic as holding on to them does not inhibit value creation.
I don't have to care which specific instance of them I have (mostly, land is where it gets funny but that's more secondary effects like transport hubs, taxation, regulations etc at which point it's not "land" it's a location I'm after).
A domain name? It's a unique registration on a global index. It's value is in that uniqueness.
(Yeah, I know it’s not central to your point.)
Around the world there are actually laws regulating physical squatting [1, 2], because it seen as a socially positive outcome (compared to leaving houses/land disused). And there are also often provisions that allow you to prevent squatting [3], but you have to give something back (e.g. dirt-cheap short-term rentals).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_in_the_Netherlands, [2] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-associations-squatter..., [3] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikraak
EDIT:
Such property can be seen to sit unused by anyone, but it's lack of availability (when it could otherwise be used) contributes to the scarcity of property in that district, and thus inflation of property prices in that area (be it naturally occurring or otherwise)
Another approach you can try instead of a formal complaint department is to apply a universal "use it or lose it" tax to the asset at risk of speculation, as economist Ramin Shokrizade famously did in EVE Online to oust speculators and solve problems with recessions:
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130405/189...
What's hilarious is that in doing so, he unwittingly rederived Henry George's Land Value Tax from first principles.
Applying a properly sized tax that disincentives holding assets for speculation can actually reduce the price overall, because speculators stop jacking the price up knowing they can HODL forever.
Since the effect is the same no matter what, we don't need a huge statute listing what does and does not apply as X.
And tangentially: seeking a minimal state that exists solely to collect LVT (and possibly Pigovian and severance taxes) and distribute the proceeds evenly as UBI is the basic idea around geolibertarianism.
The costs, of course, as well as other considerations (legal...) are of a different scale.
You might reasonably say this isn’t what most people mean by “land” to which the reply is, the amount of “new land” you can make in this manner is pretty limited and usually the reserve of states or state owned enterprises.
Comparatively, nothing stops you from tripling the number of domains overnight.
Regarding whether it's "pretty limited", yes and no, imo:
Yes, compared to, say, the size of a continent, the amount of new land is tiny.
However, new land is usually made in highly sought-after (high-density, high-value etc) areas [citation needed]. So it would make better sense to compare the surface of the new land to the surface of the adjacent area.
For example, the polders in the Netherlands significantly augment the country's surface. The artificial islands in Tokyo Bay significantly add to the real estate of the harbour. The artificial islands in Dubai and Bahrain significantly add to the coastline.
I think that this is enough for OP's analogy between domain parking and land speculation to reasonably stand.
Even if we're willing to stretch into a third dimension, that oblate spheroid has a finite volume, and the overwhelmingly vast majority of it is inaccessible to meaningful possession/occupation; you can only dig so far down or build so far up.
Every citizen and especially corporation would self-assess the value of assets they possess, pay a roughly 7% tax on these values and be required to sell the assets to anyone willing to purchase them at this self-assessed price.
In your example, you could also say "I have to put a price on our cat, and...?" Or your glasses, or your jeans and underpants. But the proposal probably didn't have such things in mind
First, under this system, long-term speculation is not really viable, due to the high tax. So the buyer must have some reason for paying higher than the price you set, which you don't see, i.e. you under-utilize the asset. Google/Facebook ads work this way - every slot is always up for auction. Also similar dynamics in partnership agreement's "shotgun clauses", etc.
Second, you can always factor in your sentimentality into your price, then the buyer will buy your neighbor's house instead. But you have to pay for it in the form of a higher tax. This is like a penalty for obstructing economic efficiency.
Third, this system pretty much does away with the strict idea of private property, into what they call "partial common ownership". It's basically a way to have shared ownership (as in communism) without the central planning, i.e. in a way that might actually work. (In fact, it quite reduces the role of government.)
I'm not advocating for this system, but I think it's fun to think about.
If your startup success depends on a 10k domain name then you should probably rethink the whole thing anyway ...
I've been much more sympathetic to concerns about domain name brevity and pronounceability ever since I ignored those concerns for my personal domain - something I regret anew every time I have to tell somebody my email address over the phone.
https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-ceo-gives-back-millio...
For example, if someone has enough money for one year of rent and health insurance, and is not deemed a security risk, why not instantly admit them? If they get a job and pay tax, you let them stay as long as they pay tax. If they keep this up for X amount of years, offer them a citizenship.
While the thing you're saying sounds reasonable it just practically isn't possible to workout in US politics.
a) you can't realistically expect this class of immigrants not to use any social service (especially emergency), there will be costs that US isn't prepared to pay
b) there are bound to be negative consequences for having a explosively growing number of poorly integrated people that are treated as second class by the government
b) the US is already filled with "poorly integrated" people, the whole country was founded on immigration. The only way you'd necessarily be treated as "second class" is by not being eligible to vote, which tourists also aren't and they don't seem to mind much.
The specifics of what to charge and what to demand are obviously flexible, but to me the net positive seems pretty obvious.
(And in addition, nothing is stopping you from charging them for the average possibility of them using it)
And just how do you intend to enforce that? It sounds nice, but we can't deal with fraud - let alone trying to determine who should and shouldn't get something on that kind of scale.
How about the rest of the world adopting more of what makes people want to come to the US? Seems to be more rational (and sustainable) than advocating that everyone should just be able to come to the US.
As for your second point it's just so far off topic I won't warrant it with a response. I never even insinuated that the US is a model country.
You'd think a country with a budget of multiple trillions of dollars a year could afford some fingerprint readers and a SQL database.
Domain squatters are attempting to get the maximum value for a domain. Ideally, they are specializing in determining what that maxinum value is and thus refusing to sell a valuable domain for less than that price.
This is actually helpful as otherwise some person comes along and buys the domain and makes some crappy website on that domain and it is their pet project so they don't want to sell (or even worse they have no contact info available and the whois is protected).
The domain squatter only cares about selling it for maximum value. They want to facilitate a transaction.
A bunch of people using quality, high value domains for low value or mom and pop businesses is suboptimal too.
The domain squatter is more likely to prevent that and get the domain to the entity that values it the must (ideally).
There is a value to that. This guy's critique makes me think he doesn't understand the value of speculators in a market, which is ironic because he has spent part of his career building trading software and working at investment banks.
The current domain trading situation is as if some real estate agent would buy all land instead of mediating seller and buyer. If your exemplaric "crappy website" wants to make a good price, there are still domain agents which could help with the deal.
Zillow (and probably other companies) are experimenting with this, buying up quite a bunch of homes to build up an inventory of homes to sell at a profit later.
It seems to me nevertheless that for domains that system is suboptimal in itself. Although I take it that parkers are better than non-specialized agents at pricing domains, and that they may create more value than charging a $7 flat fee, I doubt that their pricing systems are dynamic and sophisticated enough, and therefore a lot of value goes uncaptured. I see a lot of them simply charge domains at ~$6,000, without accepting lower bids, so for all we know there is a few dozen million domains that could've gone for anywhere between $7 and $5,999.99 that will never see the light of day...
These people provide no benefit to the web at large, they just game the system for free money. It's a clear example of a tragedy of the commons.
Analogy time - there's a part of your town where two roads come together. There's a gas station on that corner which makes you and everyone very happy, because it's a very convenient place for the gas station to be.
But how did that spot end up being a gas station? It's because the owner of the gas station valued that real estate more than the baker and the taxidermist. He paid more for it because he could earn more with it because that's what is most valuable for consumers there. These three things are connected.
Same reason GM will pay more for GM.com than a teenager named George Moore (or whatever) - because ultimately GM will generate more value for it's customers with that domain than George will.
I hope the analogy is helpful. That's how pricing of most things works.
This is the taxidermist and the baker looking at a vacant lot and wishing they could afford to open a shop there, but they can't because some asshole is sitting on it, waiting for Shell or BP to pay over the odds for the land when that won't happen because they can get land on both roads cheaper and put two of their own competing brands up to capture all the gas sales in the area.
The concept of money mapping 1:1 to value/produced utility (note that I haven't defined what a unit of this is) is a difficult concept to grasp.
It's very common for people to trivialise money as a printed piece of paper and miss the higher level value as a currency that "benchmarks" the value of one's impact to another.
Society pedestalizes healthcare workers for their immediate, physical and observable impact to the lives of individuals; and it is understandably justified. However, this often raises questions to why nurses only make marginally above average salaries. Unfortunately the semantics of the supply-vs-demand economy is often lost here - any individual nurse is generally not difficult to replace should they leave (of course, depending on the market). On the other end of the spectrum, people making significantly above the market financial trading are commonly seen as negative-value producers when most do generate a significant amount of positive value, simply because it's hard to reason with a non-physical form of value. (I don't work in a field related to financial trading)
It's unsurprising why there's communities formed to demonise the concept of currency, trade and markets; and why some of them advance further and push for the breakdown of modern society.
While I don't mean to be pushing the message that "Capitalism is perfect and the utopia of reality" - I can't imagine alternative systems not involving a free market, that would achieve similar or better levels of quality of life and advancement in society (at least in current modern? times), while balancing around the imperfections of humans.
They generate a significant amount of money - not value, money. They concentrate wealth in the hands of those who can afford to pay them to do it, a process which begets itself. That's why traders are commonly seen as negative-value producers by society as a whole - they contribute to decreased social equality.
Your argument here is circular - financial traders can only be said to be generating value if you assume that money and value are in some way equivalent. The former doesn't prove the latter.
As for nurses - if they're so easily replaced, why are so many rich societies dependent on immigrant health workers? And I'm sure you're not telling me that, if you were dying, you'd rather be attended by a stockbroker? Or could it be that "value" is a nebulous concept that is highly situational and varies from person to person?
Capitalism is very successful in certain arenas but it doesn't universally improve quality of life, and if you want an example then look no further than healthcare, and consider the difference between the US and any country with a nationalised healthcare system.
So I disagree with your disagreement - you and/or the OP may couch it in the language of economics but it boils down to the same thing; more money == better.
There's no magic there. The multinational was a local baker once - they figure out how to scale and deliver more bread at lower cost or greater quality which is what allowed them to get big. They serve more people, better.
The rest of your comment is just commie slogans, not sure how it's connected to the topic so I'll just leave you to your views there, but let me know if there's something you think needs a response.
> commie slogans
made me smile and I do have a (genuine) follow up question about that: when I hear people use phrases like that I often wonder if they see 'pure' (let's say, US-style) capitalism and communism as a binary choice, or two ends of a spectrum. What's your viewpoint? Like I said, not a loaded question.
If you create a system that lets you take a domain name from the owner for squatting it is not a big leap to expanding the definition to include whatever you want it to be. As in, soon someone will come along and say so and so does not deserve this site because they are using it in a way that generates revenue which in turn does not generate tax.
Which is what some do to claim land others own by imminent domain.
If we incentivize taking domain names for non criminal abuse we are opening the door where only those with money will be secure in their web site ownership
Domain squatters reduce the value of domain names by using them for junk advertising web sites instead of providing useful services.
You're absolutely right. The world is a better place when GM.com takes everyone to General Motors and not someone whose initials are GM who got it first. The economics of domain value definitely help make this happen.
Thanks for pointing this out!
That's BS. It's like saying that scalpers help bands, because only the most committed fans will pay the prices they charge. So their concerts will be more lively, and they will have more sells at the merch booths.
Btw, a mom and pop business will probably happily sell the domain at the price the scalper charges. So it's not that they're making anyone any favors.
Your proposition requires a significant amount of "pet project" and "mom and pop" businesses getting the domain first, and also that they refuse to sell out. This has to be so much of a problem that we're willing to regularly pay squatters for the "cure".
This seems unlikely to me, and I would say the reality is closer to the squatters looking for a ransom on a domain they're holding hostage, and without them there would simply be many more domains still available from the registrars. Specifically that the hypothetical cases where a domain wouldn't be able to be negotiated at all are outweighed by the overall value currently lost to squatters.
Somebody else decides your car is perfect for them and is willing to buy it off you for far more than it has cost you.
At what price would you sell the car?
The same applies to domains. Some people don’t care if they need to add an extra word, or pick a different extension. To other people it matters a lot.
Importantly, unless you literally tell a given seller that you won't settle for a different make/model, they have to assume that you might, and thus in their minds, they're competing for you with a lot of other people. As a buyer, you'd have to work really hard to get an unreasonable quote.
Even mass produced cars are rarely identical. From new, there are a huge number of ways cars can be optioned, and on the resale market there are myriad variables that can make a car more or less desirable to different buyers.
1. If I haven't used the domain in 2 years, it's never going to happen so I will let it lapse
That in itself may not be enough, as you may become attached to some of the names, because they're just too good. So there is also rule 2:
2. Max 12 domains at any time (1 for each month), to keep costs reasonable.
If I'm at 12 domains, and I have a really good idea for another one... I have to weigh it against the existing domains and either not register it -- or immediately turn off auto renew for whichever other domain lost against my brilliant new idea.
Google succeeded despite not having the search.com domain, Instagram didn't have the photos.com, and Uber did not own the taxi.com nor the ride.com.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070605175835/http://www.uber.c...
From https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/registrar-fees-2018-08...:
"Transaction-based fees are assessed on each annual increment of an add, renew or a transfer transaction that has survived a related add or auto-renew grace period. This fee will be billed at US$0.18 per transaction for registrars operating under the 2009 or 2013 RAA."
One way to prevent this is to: a) require that an expired domain go back to the free pool; b) require registrars to pay regular annual registration fees for all domains they own.
Disclaimer: I work for a company in this field, only speaking for myself.
Most registrars operate on very thin margins.
https://www.verisign.com/assets/com-registrar-agreement.pdf
Now I really don't understand domain parking. How can they afford to own thousands of domain names at $8/year when most of them are unpopular?
As far as I understand it, this won't cost them anything in ICANN/Verisign fees if a domain doesn't sell as there's no renewal involved or anything.
There are other registrars (usually, smaller ones) that don't auction off expiring domain names, but rather keep them for themselves. $8/year is not much to offset and if you take in consideration the occasional sale of a domain name, it becomes even less to break even. At least, this is my take on it.
Some registrars (eg. EPIK) provide you with the number of WHOIS queries ran against your domain names, the IP's used etc. This is enough information to signal interest or not in a domain name. Also, once a domain expires, they can point it to their own DNS and start collecting a whole new set of valuable info.
Sure, programmers like sweet and short domains, but customers don't care if your domain is widget.com, widget.net, widgetapp.com or companyname.xy/widget
Spending 5000 on a domain name is probably not worth it for the vast majority of startups.
There are some exceptions. If you are an email provider and your customers will use the domain in their email address it probably is a good idea to get a good domain.
But I really don't think that domain matters as much as founders think they do.
That said, as a non-US person I'm not personally on-board with .com-for-everything, but I understand that Joe Public in the USA thinks differently.
Generally, I'm not sure. But I (and I think the majority of the people I know) were beyond that stage a long time ago or never cared/understood to start with. As you mention, not being in the US might bias my opinions and the opinions I'm exposed to on the matter, so YMMV.
I'm not sure if it confers any SEO advantage, but I don't particularly care about that (the things I have hosted are only useful to people who already know about them, so SEO isn't a concern).
> trustworthy
That might be the wrong concept for the discussion though. Another key factor is whether somthine.com is more memorable or guessable than something.co.uk, something.site, something.link, ...
I think, as a start, any domain is fine but when you have gone big, you should acquire dotcom.
I’d say that engines are now smart enough, typically, to get you to the most likely place no matter what.
It's not - and I doubt it ever was - about SEO in the technical sense (the hypothesis being that .com has some kind of innate SE ranking benefit compared to other TLDs).
To me it's far more that if you have a company called, say, 'YCombinator' then a huge number of people will simply assume you are to be found at YCombinator.com, simply because their experience is that all the other well-known brands live at .com, so why wouldn't you?
Why would you choose to fight that if you didn't have to?
Getting sales from big corps, for example, is often partly about your perceived current state of established-ness.
In Sweden we've "solved" this problem by a rule that says that if you incorporated the business XYZ then you're entitled to the domain XYZ.se. Incorporating requires $2500 in capital and you can't incorporate as "pizza" or any other common word, so squatting is not a problem there.
What happens if the domain is already registered? I think I've seen .se used as the ending of english words like say impul.se (first try, seems to be unused or squatted).
Handshake[1] has a solution for this problem. Each new domain, instead of being sold outright, is put up for a two-week-long Vickrey auction[2]. If registrars adopted this policy, buying domains just for parking would become much less affordable.
I wish ticket sellers functioned that way. This would let artists get the true value of their tickets (which is much higher than what they're usually sold at. Ticket scalpers would also have to disappear, as real customers would be paying the true ticket prices directly to artists, and there would be no opportunity for profit.
Disallowing the transfers of domains (with exceptions) is another way to solve the problem. Transfers should be allowed only when the new owner is going to continue using the domain for the same project, which is also transferred over. In all other cases, the domain would be returned back to the pool, where anyone could buy it for the normal price. A similar strategy is already used by some ticket companies.
[1] https://handshake.org/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction
I think this works better for ticket companies because there’s a temporal element and more demand.
Still makes it a sleazy activity IMO.
If there's no reserve, they'd still just buy up everything they could get for $.01. If there's a $10 reserve, at least one person would bid $11 just to make you pay $11.01 -- and setting off an arms race that raises the price of all domains, even cat pictures blogs.
Is there something I'm missing?
It makes a lot of sense for tickets, where there's no incentive for domain squatters to bid up the price of an item that's worth more to you than it is to them.
I sure don't like domain squatters, who are the epitome of "why we can't have nice things". But I don't know how to design a system that prevents them without also putting in a lot of friction at the bottom end where intuitively you'd expect there to be practically no cost.
I ended up just searching for available domains that kind of matched what I wanted to convey to use a product name.
It is frustrating, but I don't think there is really an answer.
- Limit the number of domains per person/business to say, 10, unless you can show that you are actively using them?
- Have a 'use it or lose it' type system?
Those are not great ideas, and practically are not really enforceable anyway.
I dunno, it's annoying but I guess it's up there with ticket scalpers etc
This is how the .dk and probably many other top level domains are handled.
There is a special "domain court" which you ask for a ruling in case a domain seems to be unused and you have a better claim for it.
I think the dropped the domains when their stopped providing customers with email accounts.
Depending on the court, I can see a large number of cases where someone is forced to hand over a domain, because they aren't using it for a website.
Besides, just having a "domain squatting is illegal" rule would mean domain resale websites won't be possible as they will be a clear sign of bad intend.
It may not remove all the squatting, but if you can't easily set up a resale shop, it'll be a lot less economically attractive.
I think .dk and .com probably diverge in this case because (a) a top .com is literally a million-dollar lottery ticket of incentive, and (b) .com is so much bigger that it would probably allow for utility services that set up trivial email services for a minimal fee, across your whole portfolio of domains. I'm not sure .dk can sustain the same kind of domainer industry tooling.
Plus, there's the problem of jurisdiction. For .dk it's pretty clear: cases are heard and decided in Denmark. And, since it's mostly Danish entities using .dk, that doesn't cause much unfairness. If .com is arbitrated in the US, seems like US corps are likely to take advantage of that and cause a lot of problems for smaller entities around the world.
I wish the .dk solution could be applied to .com. I hate how .com is right now. But I'm not sure it works at global scale.
Whilst it was frustrating they were not available, it wasn't the end of the world to me.
I've had a 3 letter .net domain for 23 years, and in all that time there has never been more than a small website on it with a handful of extremely low traffic pages that no one would care about [1].
From a web point of view, it appears to be an almost dead domain, something that I played with a bit at the end of the last century and have largely ignored since then.
But domains are also used for email, and my primary email has been on that domain for all that time. There are several hundred companies that have that email address on file as a contact address and/or as an account identifier, and all my friends and acquaintances use it to correspond with me.
How would I prove I was using it if someone tried to get it transferred to them on grounds of non-use? To prove significant use of it for email seems hard to do without having to share a lot of personal and private information.
[1] Oddly, there is one page on it that for most of that time was the #1 hit on Google if you searched for the thing that page is about, although recently it has slipped a few spots, and is still #1 on Bing and DDG and Yahoo. The page is just plain text with some tables and some bolded headings, has never been publicized, has no SEO, and according to Google only has one outside site linking to it (in a comment I made seven years ago in a forum), and there are numerous other pages out there that cover the same thing I did and usually better. I am completely baffled as to why mine ranks so high.
I think there should be a subscription fee for domains in certain TLDs (especially .com) — so that there is a real cost to holding domains. If you are using it for a business, you will have no problem paying the subscription, but if you want to squat on hundreds of domains, it will quickly make your costs unsustainable. The current system where it costs next to nothing to hold a domain encourages squatting.
I have a few .com's and I pay yearly subscriptions on them. And some domains in other TLDs have "premium" subscription prices which can be 10-100x higher than the normal domain subscription price.
> so that there is a real cost to holding domains. If you are using it for a business, you will have no problem paying the subscription
This sounds like it would make the cost painful, if not prohibitive, for individuals to own domains in those TLDs. Don't get me wrong, squatting is annoying. But I don't think raising the prices is the right fix, since it may end up with the side effect of making domain purchases in some TLDs only available to businesses.
You and I can both name our daughters “Carla McIntyre”, all uses of their name will be context-sensitive.
On many sites, and for email providers, we need to be scoobydoo45478 because there were other scoobydoos that showed up first. Same is going to happen with domain names. At least a squatter won’t be able to claim copyright on the prefix.
I have a domain for my email and a website hosting the handful of things I've put out over the years and my resume. It's a single word on a popular TLD.
Should I be priced out of that domain?
If no: businesses will still squat.
If yes: why the fuck should I care about stopping squatters if I can't even afford an available domain name?
Your "next to nothing" is not so close to nothing for others.
When you're building a business, your business' finances are literally your own finances. So in order to start a business (and get a domain for it) you'd already need to be rich enough to be able to pay the substantial fee from your own pocket. That doesn't sound that great.
At least the leech responds to me immediately, will negotiate 100% of the time and will actually sell you the domain.
Meanwhile, you've got the owner (might be previous owner considering the site has been updated now) of "Steam.com" who had a message saying "domain not for sale" on the site for years. [1] Not using it. Not selling it. Just sitting. Now Valve has to use the ugly abomination known as "Steampowered.com".
When I want a squatted domain, I can get it. When I want a domain some random guy owns, he doesn't reply 80% of the time. The other 20% he won't sell.
If the person is using it for his hobby (keyword using) I don't see how that's any of our business. Either he wants your $10000 or not.
On the other hand, if he is not using it, I'm all for avenues to address this, for example ICANN or local TLD "courts". This would then cover squatting/scalping as well.
The same concepts tend to exist in the digital world. They don't have to exist in the digital world, but surprise! Us humans make it so. NFTs, for example. They prove that a particular configuration of bytes, which can be replicated exactly (!) at zero cost, have value to people. Scarcity value.
Therefore, only so many "good" TLDs, and names within that given TLD.
You can rage against it, but you will end up achieving nothing.
On a broader point:
> The same concepts tend to exist in the digital world. They don't have to exist in the digital world, but surprise! Us humans make it so.
Yes. And that's what's ruining the digital world. People creating artificial scarcity to extract money from trading things that should be freely accessible, instead of finding a business model where one gets paid by contributing something of value to the society.
--
"Cool" domains are expensive because they are scarce. They are scarce because having an expensive domain name signals to potential customers a more legitimate service/product.
If "cool" domains were abundant, there would be no demand to pay above market price for one.
Normal people end up paying $20 or so per year, MUCH more than the domain parkers, and enough that people tend not to horde them without a planned use.
Make the domain parkers pay the same as normal folks and things would get MUCH better.
That said, fuck domain parkers. Just speculators fucking up my ideas for no value add.
Likewise for domains. I think many just buy domains with the idea of building something "one day". If it isn't actively listed for sale, it's hard to discern intent.
https://medium.com/swlh/the-economy-is-broken-rent-seeking-b...
On the other hand, if you don’t want to spend that money up front, you can wait, knowing that nobody else can register the domain (unless they spend a similar amount first).
But when you register the domain you agree to the policy I've pasted below.
So you can start using the domain straight away, but if, before you have registered a matching business/company name or trademark, somebody else can demonstrate eligibility to use that domain, they can challenge your registration and you'd have to hand it over.
===
Policy Acceptance
By submitting this application for a domain name, you confirm that you are eligible to hold the domain name set out in this application, and that all information provided in this application is true, complete and correct, and is not misleading in any way. If any of the information is later found not to be true, or is incomplete, incorrect, or misleading in any way, or if you have submitted this application in bad faith, the domain name license can be canceled and you can permanently lose the use of the domain name. I certify that I understand the agreement and that domain names have a close & substantial connection to the person/business that it is intended to represent.
Not surprising, considering there are at least 4 auDA accredited registrars who specialise in domain parking[1], which is (allegedly) against the rules.
[1] https://www.auda.org.au/accredited-registrars - see drop.com.au, terrific.com.au, yexa.com.au, fabulous.com.au
Here are a few examples, all definitely parked domains - but auDA allows it:
television.com.au
bank.com.au
remotecontrols.com.au
modem.com.au
tweet.com.au
homephone.com.au
homepage.com.au (This domain is for sale, $80k)
It would be great if auDA enforced their policy...
This is what is known as "rent-seeking behavior"
And there's a metric fuckton of it in our economy.
Then there other parts of town (.io, .co, .app and so on) which become gentrified and increase in value as people move into them and start doing fresh things.
I once pondered taking out a business loan to acquire a particular .com domain, thinking of it as a mortgage. The thinking was that once it's been acquired you can run your business from that prime property instantly and pay that asset off each month. Then one day if you ever had to sell it you could probably get the same or more for it, provided you hadn't overpaid initially.
buy domain ⇾ build traffic to domain ⇾ domain value increases
The value of the domain is often an artifact of the value of what was hosted on the domain, or an artifact of the value of the brand represented in the domain, but rarely just "awesome name value".
There's a domain I've wanted for decades for sentimental reasons. I randomly checked on it a few weeks ago and noticed it had lapsed but GoDaddy had picked it up and was asking $3,500 for it.
Obviously I'm not going to pay that, so I'm keeping an eye on it (through searches on other registrars) to see if they drop the price (I'd pay a few hundred bucks for it).
I haven't contacted them or tried to make an offer yet, cause I don't want to let them know that someone is actually interested in the domain and ruin any chances I'd have just by waiting.
But in any case, what's the procedure they usually follow? I figure if I offer then $200 they'll turn it down flat and dig their heels in further.
An economy is set up based on trade for mutual benefit, and if all participants have that mindset and use things as they are supposed to be used, it will be mostly self-regulating. But there will always be those who exploit the system and find the loopholes to benefit only themselves, ruining it for everyone else (and necessitating regulation).
But the domain costs 5000$ so I cannot afford it, since the service I would offer is free of charge.
I would use my home country which I feel makes sense but it gets localized out of international search results whilst .co and .io have gotten a free pass for some reason.
Yes
> Having said that really good names are probably taken by legitimate businesses.
And No. Very no. There are lots of really good names out there that are being sat on, doing nothing. Anyone who's started a business can tell you of the infuriating days or weeks spent coming up with good names and then finding they're all being squatted, before settling for some nonsense made up name because "ffs I don't care any more, just hammer something into the keyboard that's available and we'll have that and get on with it"
On the other hand it is quite fun to try to think about an original name that nobody else has thought of before. So yeah your days or weeks are in competition with people's years of doing this as a hobby.
Not that I'm knocking that, if that's what floats your boat. It's just exasperating when you're actually trying to do something else and this gets in the way.
I was a little struck that my first attempt came up with Otter And Frame -- OtterFrame.com is taken, but OtterAndFrame.com isn't. I'd be curious to know what fraction of that N^2 space is taken already. (It doubles to 2N^2 if you add the word "And" between them, though I guess the version without will always be more desirable.)
OtterAndFrame.com is at least as good a name as Akiflow.com or Biyaki.com (two names dredged from YCombinator's summer class).
That being said, I’d be scared about domain names raising the price 200x - all providers could literally hold domain renters hostage here, so it’s a double edged sword I guess..
Also, ICANN should directly auction expiring domain names themselves. It's infuriating that when a domain name expires, whoever has the fastest script pays $10 and then immediately resells it for $100K to whoever actually needed it.
ICANN and the registries are just bigger drug dealers, they too will use that money to do more bad.
I can only speak for myself, but if prices doubled overnight, owning a domain would not be feasible for me because I don't conduct business or earn income on the domain I own, and the only reason I went for this fairly obscure TLD is because it was the cheapest decent one I could afford. Some of us aren't "businesses", and unless you think we don't deserve a corner of the internet, you'll find there's tons of us.
Sorry but yes, if you’re not making enough money from your .com to pay (say) $50/year, I think it’s perfectly fine that you can’t use it for your random hobby project. The lost value that comes from .com being messed up is so much greater.
.com is very clearly commercial so what I had to say isn't applicable to it (which is why I mentioned I use a relatively obscure TLD like .site or .xyz).
Way to stereotype though.
(DDG didn't return anything with this quote, I think I should coin it!!)
With that said, a friend called me one day suggesting that we buy the a domain similar to "cocacola.it" (Italy), as it was available. His idea is that we put ads on that site, and a link to forward to the original "cocacola.com". This way we would collect $$$ from the ads, and perhaps we could sell the domain to CocaCola if/when they discover us.
I prompted him to read what is "domain hijacking" and also suggested that if CocaCola (or any other company) sends their lawyers our way, we're f-ed (financially).
I like the suggestion some people have already made.. don't google, don't 'test'. If you search the domain name you want, BUY the word then & there.
If not for those f*cking stock parkers, I'd still be buying TSLA at $10 today!
These services would have existed regardless, opersting under other names hd those domain names not been available for purchase in the start up phase. That’s by supply and demand.
It's not true. I m usually able to find decent names that are not taken. I have no time to negotiate with for-sale domains.
Ehh.. how is it different from buying land ? Theres a limited ressource and it has a value.. of course some people are going to buy it.
You should be happy the whole concept of "renting" a domain name doesn't exist yet.
Apparently, I was just “leasing” it. There was no contract; just a simple payment.
I started raising a stink. They made some attempts at barratry, I said “bring it on,” so they rather sourly tossed me the keys, and told me to get out.
The idea is that you “lease” a domain to someone, who imbues it with value, and becomes dependent on it, then you raise the price on lease end.
If they had actually spent a few dollars, getting a lawyer to draft a contract, I would have been screwed.
In fact, some cities have laws against people doing exactly that with houses. And for good reason.
Without good way to attribute ownership of thoe domains, they would just split them into different shell companies.
And to some extent that worked - if "yourfavouritename.com" is taken (it is) then you can have "yourfavouritename.tech" or whatever.
But there's this superstition about ".com" names in the business, that they're just more authoritative and people won't trust a ".tech" domain. And it does leave you open to someone else buying the ".com" later and giving you a problem.
But at least you can get a domain and launch the business, which is something.
Like anything else of this nature, this occurs by people never paying on post-billed charges that also include grace periods.
Type in any random concatenation of two words into namecheck.com and you are likely to find that the domain is available but all the social media handles are taken - and clearly parked.
This I don't really understand since you can't sell social media handles. What's the incentive to park thousands of them?
What gives you that idea? I'm certain that social media handles get bought and sold all the time. Maybe it's against TOS but when has that stopped anyone?
This is not theoretical, it actually does happen.
which is a pretty amazing story when I just started using social media.
https://www.deepsouthventures.com/build-a-side-business/
Domain names are powerful, cheap marketing that only gets more powerful over time as links are acquired. It can be a huge advantage in driving organic traffic to your online business.
Paying someone who speculated on the domain's value early on isn't outrageous. It's like getting mad at someone for buying a piece of real estate on the edge of town, having the town grow around their property, and seeing the value appreciate. The buyer took a risk. Circumstances could have worked out differently.
Speculation is a really natural market force. Suck it up, babies. If your product is that good, your investment into a good domain will pay back quickly!
Eventually I settled on lastname.onl
Generally, when you buy a domain from one of these companies you're dealing with an Afternic salesperson or some other affiliation. These salespeople substantially discount during negotiations.
I recently purchased a very premium domain from Afternic for 25% less than the "sticker price". It sucks having to pay them thousands of dollars but in my view I underpaid for the domain considering the marketability of it.
The world is better for these companies' existence? That... that remains to be seen. All of these companies are exploiting workers -- it's not just me saying, the UK has recently ruled so. Uber deliberately circumvented the law (google for greyball) which should be a crime but you know, big companies are not pursued for these things criminally. And so forth.
Latest idea it looks like I’ll have to buy from someone else. But that’ll be the first time ever.
Why is it not profitable? because you have to pay the actual market value to own it and hold it. You don't pay a ridiculously low fee to buy it and then re-sell it at their market value. That doesn't make sense, yet that's what happens with domain names.
Are you a non-profit or don't have money? Great, because there are myriads of top-level domains that don't mean "commercial" which will probably have lower prices.
In fact, I'm sure you could liken the rush to squat domain names to many present-day internet gold rush crazes. People didn't know for sure that they would be valuable and scarce, don't forget.
So yeah - obviously it being hard to get domains you want is annoying, but that seems quite a simplistic and outdated rant for this place.
And maybe because I choose "unusual" domain names, I've found buying them to be relatively straight-forward. There are now so many top-level domains to choose from that you can usually concoct something that works well with one of them. Admittedly, these haven't been names for "startups" - they're for small businesses and local groups, but it can't be that different.
Yeah, no. If it wasn't for domain parkers, the fancy domain that a domain parker thinks is worth $10k would have been sold 10 years ago for $10 for some high school student building a website for their dog.
Not to mention how facebook.com would be the 1999 face book of Big Cedar High School somewhere in rural America.
Can someone tell him that he is complaining about the system which made him rich?!
They say:
> So what's the problem, isn't this a legitimate business? On its face, yes - but it is value-destructive as hell. [reference to supposedly legitimate businesses] The world is better for these companies' existence. ... Domain-Parking is nothing like that. If it wasn't for domain parkers, you'd still get your domain - just for 10$, rather than 10.000$.
You wouldn't get your domain for $10, because someone else would get your domain for $10 instead. It is that simple, they'd beat you to it. How is that any more fair of a determining factor than raising the cost/price? It's not, it's a purely subjective opinion that one determing factor is better than the other, or more fair than the other. It's an argument that having capital to allocate to purchase a domain for eg $10,000 is unfair to everyone else without that much capital. It's false.
By that basis, it's unfair for a business to have $500,000 to buy a nice plot of land in a town square to open a new retail shop. Golly gee, what about all the other people that don't have that money. This is a perpetually reducing argument that goes all the way down to the last person with $0 (the person who gets to own the universe because they have nothing, and everything is unfair toward them accordingly; which then breaks the system morally, which lets you know it's a fraud, it's self-contradictory). It means having enough money to purchase a McDonald's franchise - which is like a magic ticket to a forever nice return on your money (at least historically) - is unfair to everyone else that can't (which is 99% of the world's population). It applies to all routine economic activity, all business function (without exception), and is similarly absurd when applied.
This business over here can't afford new $10k equipment. It's unfair, the competition can afford it. That equipment therefore should be $1 and it's first come first serve. The company making that equipment must be forced to supply it at a loss forever. All equipment derives from natural resources somewhere (which derives from land ownership/control), it's unfair some people can access those natural resources and others can't.
This business over here can't afford to buy a new building. Their competitor can afford a nice new building that draws more customers. It's unfair. Some building owner should be forced to turn over a nice building for pennies on the dollar. Who are these people that get to decide that natural resources like land or building materials are worth something? It should all be $0.01, first come first serve.
Norway and Canada should have to give me their oil resources, I want to screw around with a million barrels of oil per day. I have an idea I want to put into action. Who are they to control natural resources? It should be first come first serve, $0.0001 per barrel of oil. Because I say that's fair. Why should someone with a lot of money be able to buy a million barrels of oil and I can't?
Everyone that owns a house or yard with more space than deemed fair (who decides? the authoritarians of course), must be forced to turn that space over to someone else that wants to use it (for any purpose). You have no choice in who gets to move into your (whoops, it's not your space really) unused space, it's first come first serve. Welcome to hell.
It's unfair that someone else had more time than I did to watch for domain names to buy for $10 in the new system. The counters never stop, that's because the author's alternative will always fail and will never produce the supposed fairness.
Any application of this author's premise would implode into absolute disaster economically. Only authoritarian technocrats would propose it could work and be managed, and they'd come up with all sorts of absurd regulations and systems that had to be followed & implemented perfectly in order for it to even function badly. And in the end, the supposed unfairness would persist regardless. It'll always be proclaimed unfair that another person beat you to a domain based on time (first mover). Maybe if someone gets to a domain first, we can just force them to share it, they get to use the domain every other day, or maybe once per year if we want to increase the fairness factor.
We might just regulate how a TLD works so that there is no domain parking industry and problem is then solved. The party who runs the TLD is surely not going to sell them at a loss since they aren't getting those 5k or 100k amounts even today. They just get 10$ or 100$ per yer or whatever.
If someone doesn't use a domain anymore and someone else has a claim on it, then it just gets moved to a new owner.
Example:
In Finland this is how the .fi domain works, you can get yourcompany.fi if you own yourcompany Oy (Ltd) and someone is just hoarding it. There's a process for this. It works.
The new-generation TLD owners already do this with "Premium" names. Google does it with .app. A price is arbitrarily decided for your first year. Who knows what price it might be in a few years' time.
I disagree, they provide value by keeping premium domains available for people with money.
> Thanks to Uber you now can seamlessly hail a ride to wherever you are. Thanks to AirBnB you now have a great alternative to hotels.
Uber started as UberCab.com , AirBnB started as AirBedandBreakfast.com . Premium domain name is not required to start a successful business.
> If it wasn't for domain parkers, you'd still get your domain - just for 10$, rather than 10.000$.
Or not, it could have been claimed (possibly unused) with the owner not checking their email. I think domain parkers solve this very problem.
how does keeping domains away from people with little money provide any value?
> Or not, it could have been claimed (e.g. for a hobby project that's permanently work in progress) with the owner not checking their email.
As long as the owner pays the fee who gives a f? What makes a hobby project less worthy then a professional product?
The value is that the market becomes more efficient.
True, it doesn't. Then again, how is it different from property prices? A business that wants to open a shop in a premium location has to pay a higher price. I may be not seeing something, but to me this looks similar.
> As long as the owner pays the fee who gives a f?
I think other market users would become annoyed. Businesses would still have trouble coming up with names, but now they would have no way to solve that with money. And users would have to deal with more "creative" names.
Uber - seeking rent on poor people (drivers) and using them as a tool to fight taxi corporations. Taxi corporations nowadays also have apps where you can order a cab and pay with it. Uber forced this change maybe but we don't need it anymore.
AirBnB - helping people who already ruin cities by owning flats/houses for passive income to ruin it even more by making it more profitable. Building a hotel is costly and ruining someone neighborhood by building a hotel is hard. Ruining neighborhood by buying off flats and making them short term rentals is easy.
Amazon - well let's not go into how much of businesses they ruined. How much value they create vs how much bad stuff they do is probably not easy to "calculate" but sucking out value from low wage workers and passing it to people who buy stuff online is not what I would call creating positive value.
Domainparkers are annoying but they are not sucking value out from poor people and are not externalizing costs to society like those above mentioned companies. Author could get some perspective, not getting some domain name is whining and people are more creative that mostly they don't need to buy off those to run business.