martinibuster - 4:38 pm on Feb 7, 2005 (gmt 0)

Makes sense. I was IMing with someone about this last week. He asserted that there was a lot of money to be made and Google was likely to move in on it.

I disagreed because that path didn't fit into Google's Mission Statement which is simply to organize information. Everything Google does fits neatly into that matrix, including adwords and adsense (which distribute information relevant to a search query and context).

So keeping the Mission Statement in mind, it made sense that this move had more to do with obtaining more information about domain names than anything else.

The questions I have are:

• Does this mean that you can't hide your domain name ownership behind a proxy?

• What additional information do they have access to?

• Was this simply a cost saving move? Will they have the same info as before, but pay less for it?

• What implications does this have for the way PR is reset after expiration?