I think it's time for a rule to say that if a domain hasn't been substantially developed in two years then it will be deregistered and the domain awarded to the applicant with the highest merit in a usage application?
I propose this because there would be too much of an outcry if it became a criminal offence to renew a domain without the honest intention to develop it within the next six months.
Squatters have had plenty of time to make their money and anyone who has entered the game in recent years knew what they were getting involved with.
Domain names have no intrinsic value, the value of a squatted domain is based only on the fact that you are stopping someone else from registering the domain by keeping it registered under your name.
I beg to differ ...
Big domain portfolios are all parked. Premium names can earn a nice profit both for the domain holder and (presumably) for the parking page advertisers.
If you owned a name that was earning hundreds of dollars (or more) a month in parked revenue, would you sell it to someone for $10?
Just because you don't approve of the use doesn't mean the name isn't being used.
if a domain hasn't been substantially developed in two years then it will be deregistered and the domain awarded to the applicant with the highest merit
This looks like the beginning of a slippery slope. Other than the examples mentioned, what if someone puts up a porn site and someone else declares that porn in no way can be considered "substantially developed". This process could be done to kill any web site a group doesn't like.
The scariest concept is giving the name "to the applicant with the highest merit". How in the world is this determined? Do the applicants need to have already debeloped the site they plan to put there? Does a site that talks about wanting to help feed poor children in Africa have more merit than a site about creating new audio codecs? Would "highest merit" eventually mean "most money"?
Just remember, you don't even have to use DNS. You could just distribute your IP address if you want to. If you really want DNS there are still billions of names still out there for the taking. Yes, they aren't nice 4-5 letter dictionary words, but they aren't necessary to have a sucessful site. Look at the top 500 sites on Alexa and see how many are words you could find in a standard dictionary?
in 1989 he invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing.I don't see co-operation or playing nicely mentioned:-)
If you are squatting widgetsinfo.com, widgetguide.com, guidetowidgets.com, aboutwidgets.com and I want to start a guide to widgets then you are certainly making it harder for my global information sharing.
If you are squatting widgetsinfo.com, widgetguide.com, guidetowidgets.com, aboutwidgets.com and I want to start a guide to widgets then you are certainly making it harder for my global information sharing.
Not really. Be creative and look for another domain or make me an offer I can't refuse. This is all a part of doing business online. The arguments raised in this topic don't apply. Domain names are just like real estate. Just because I have land that you want and I'm not using it doesn't mean that I have to give it up to you because you see the world with Rose Colored Glasses. ;)
If you want it that bad, make me an offer. I bought those domains and continue to buy them in hopes of making a profit on the resale of those domains. And you know what? It's a profitable business model that works! :)
Domain names are just like real estate.
Domain names are NOT just like real estate. At least not by design. (Only by neglect - lack of regulation.)
Domain names serve a purpose - easy recall of symbolic addresses by humans. Anything that detracts fro that purpose should be prohibited as not serving the public good.
Stockpiling of domain names that aren't used definately detracts from that purpose. Domain parking detracts from that purpose. Nobody WANTS to land on a parked domain. The fact that there are probably 10 times as many domains as are actually being used means that, on average, domain names are much longer and less meaningful than they could be.
Sorry, but parked domains are the pigeons in our parks... There's nothing attractive or useful about them.
That said, there's no easy solution. Like with much of the Internet, the domain name system has unanticipated problems that nobody thought about when it was designed in a cooperative academic environment. At this point, it's going to be very difficult to fix the system while being fair.
BTW, somebody made the suggestion that domain users write a little paragraph describing their use of the domain. Surprise, surprise! You USED to have to do this! That requirement went out the window shortly after commercialization.
It just seems ridiculous to try to even fathom how to control all the domains, all the tld's, and what about people who buy domains and set stuff up for others? The domains are in their name and they'll have to pay more?
What big brother organization would make the determination if you have too many?
Who will decide what is the better use of a domain name? That question itself is very scary.
I think with so many tld's you can find a solution with a name you want. Maybe you won't get a .com but there are so many options now.
--- that is the scariest comment of all. "highest merit"
in whose eyes?
Why not just say you have to bribe the officials who would determine it and be done with it.
All sites are equal, but some are more equal than others?
Good grief.
--- that is the scariest comment of all. "highest merit"in whose eyes?
What I see in this thread are domains squatters trying to defend their business practice against the vast majority of people who feel it is quite improper. Just because something makes you money doesn't mean it's right!
What I see in this thread are domains squatters trying to defend their business practice against the vast majority of people who feel it is quite improper.
I'd prefer Domain Visionary if you don't mind. ;)
Just because something makes you money doesn't mean it's right!
I thank this gets to the nub of the disagreement - that is exactly what the domain squatters think.
Also I love the way they keep bringing up the analogy with land despite the fact that they actually want domain registrations to be treated in a completely different way from land!
I'd prefer Domain Visionary if you don't mind. ;)
I like it :)!
in 1989 he invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing.I don't see co-operation or playing nicely mentioned:-)I see exactly that mentioned. Did you see the words 'global information sharing'? So - share - don't horde the domain database entries which would enable other people to share using a more appropriate name.
Errr...since when has sharing and co-operation meant the same thing in English let alone end up with the idealistic result one was anticipating?
Do I assume that you want me to co-operate with yourself, that we are going to perform an equal volume of work tasks and that together we are going to share the benefits equally?
Hmmm...I've been down that road, it very rarely works, it's open to too much abuse and inevitably all falls apart when one of the parties "decides" that the other is not doing its fair share of co-operation by not playing the game nicely.
I prefer my system since it's much easier to understand, I know where I and everyone else stands.
Apologies, I won't be joining your revolution:-)
From Tim Berners Lee bio at w3.org:in 1989 he invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing.
Once again, the falicy that the WWW = The Internet.
It's easy to make this mistake, as most of us came to the Internet well after the invention of the WWW. Some of us have been around longer.
The INTERNET (as opposed to the WWW) was invented in the 1970's. It was a defense department-sponsored research project, and the handful of initial participants were academic institutions. Cooperation and "playing nice" were assumed, and, unfortunately, this philosophy was embedded in the protocols and conventions. A lot of the problems we face today did not have solutions developed in the early years (when they would have been much easier to implement) because there was no need for them.
Take spam, as one example. There was no spam on the Internet for the first several years. In fact, commercial messages of any kind were banned. Only after the Internet was commercialized did the first spam start appearing. No mechanism was ever designed to deal with spam or positive authentication of email senders - because when the Internet was developed, there was no need for it.
Now we are stuck with spam, even though it would have been easy to prevent it. At this point, too many people are dependent on the current infrastructure to make the major changes needed to eliminate spam.
And so we are also stuck with a dysfunctional land-grab mentality in domain naming. Little thought was given to the usability of the domain name system expanded to hundreds of millions of sites, let alone most of them being dead-end alleys designed to snatch a few pennies from each passer-by.
The concept of domains being packed many per server was virtually unknown - more than one per IP would have sounded crazy. It was assumed that you had a domain name so you could map all your sections to canonicals. Domain names were much bigger than one web-server - the web-interface being just one small part of what a domain name was expected to be used for.
The changes have been vast and have been in directions that few of us would have believed possible. The shear affordability of the internet has become a revolution in itself, but as previous posters have alluded to, the commericialisation came as a big shock.
I don't mean commericalisation in terms of corporate bodies being part of the Internet - they were part of the Internet from its very early days. Symbolics.com was the first registered domain back in 1985. The big tech players of the time had their own domains, as did the telephony firms. What I mean is the use of the internet for focused targetted and intensive sales and marketing - using the internet as a market and not just as a shopfront. It's great that such a thing has developed, don't get me wrong, but as alluded to by previous posters, the spirit of domain names has trampled into the dust and must be defended if the system is to retain at least a little bit of dignity.
If all the abused .com domains were released today there would be no market for most of these new gTLDs.
If all the abused .com domains were released today there would be no market for most of these new gTLDs.
Okay, I'm going to let my domains expire so they can go back into the pool.
I just renewed most of them until 2010 so it will be a while before they become available. In the mean time, you are more than welcome to submit a bid for the one's you want. ;)
P.S. I don't do domain parking. My portfolio was/is purchased based on speculation and the possibility that I may build upon those domains at some point in the future. I wanted to make sure I had those domains available just in case.
If all the abused .com domains were released today there would be no market for most of these new gTLDs.
With the word abused in that sentence, I surely wouldn't want the domain after it was abused. Who wants to start off with a bad reputation? ;)
And so we are also stuck with a dysfunctional land-grab mentality in domain naming. Little thought was given to the usability of the domain name system expanded to hundreds of millions of sites, let alone most of them being dead-end alleys designed to snatch a few pennies from each passer-by.
Not to mention the original designers never considered giving ownership of these domain names to anyone, absolute and exclusive at that.
Or maybe someone did but just never got around to it. :)
When I first bought a domain name I was worried that I was abusing the system because I didn't have a company, nor was I an organisation and I wasn't a network service provider. I put off the purchase for a long time because I felt it would be in appropriate to ue a domain name for something other than holding a whole infrastructure behind it.
Yes, there was a good degree of "self-filtering" in earlier days. It was clear that having a domain name was a privilege, not a right.
My first domain was registered in 1995. It was a 4-letter common-word .net, which I got because the .com was not available. In 1995, you DID have to write that little paragraph, and I was actually worried that my justification for registering a .net would be rejected.
It was for a webcam site - one of the first if not the first outdoor webcam. Sure, I was "stretching" the definition of what .net was for, and envisioned an eventual network of webcams (and other video feeds) around the world and the domain name tying it all together. I suppose nobody ever read that paragraph, but I felt better. :)
At the time, though, most registrants at least actually stopped to think about whether their registration was appropriate, and worried about doing the "right" thing.
