Forum Moderators: martinibuster
ASA
Call me anything you like.
How about principled, ethical, smart. When enough people poison their overall environments (be it economic, ecological) not only does the environment suffer, but eventually the ability to make money from it disappears.
Two things come to mind.
Who deserves respect. The person who painted the Mona Lisa, or the person who might happen to own it? Who made the biggest contribution?
Second, an analogy. Imagine a town where there is a rumor of a major development. Many companies come in and anticipating huge windfall profits, buy up ALL the commercial property. Since it turns out they make more money through writeoffs than through rent, the leave all the stores vacant, while also pushing up both rents, and purchase prices because they create artificial shortages.
Nobody can be employed in the town, or do business in the town, so eventually the town starts to decay, people leave if they can suffering huge losses, and the whole thing collapses.
In the end everyone loses, because even the initial investments lose value since there will be no huge development, because there is really no town anymore to support it, demand drops, and even the purchasers lose.
However, if the people who bought the properties initially tried to develop the properties, the communities and the town, then the story would have a completely different ending. But short term profits won. Or so they thought. Nothing illegal here. Just greed.
That is the type of thing that happens to some degree when there is total disregard for the greater system.
This isn't so much about morality and ethics and values( which it is) but also about practical economics.
Is investing in a domain for the purpose of reselling it any more evil than these other examples of 'collecting resources and then holding them for ransom':
1. owning undeveloped real estate for a later sale?
2. buying a share of stock for the purpose of reselling it at a profit?
3. keeping a Morgan Plus 4 in the barn to sell in 20 years or so?
1. If the overwhelming majority of available real estate is held by companies doing nothing with it, yes, there's a very practical problem. Imagine what happens if most of the farmland in North America was owned by people who find it economically beneficial for them to let it rot. Do you see the practical problem?
The problem is the effect on people who DO want to use the resource to create something.
2) Shares exist, at this point in time, for the very purpose of appreciation. It's a bad example mostly. It's like saying having money is bad, because that's really close to the same as having shares, unless you have enough to control a company, and that's a different situation.
3) I don't know what a Morgan is, so I'll fake it. Let's say I write a book. Someone comes along and says, "I'll buy every single copy" since I'm sure in 15 years, after the old guy is cold and dead, they'll be worth a fortune".
Nothing illegal about that. But here's the problem and it actually has nothing to do with whether the person actually makes money (he won't).
The act of hoarding means that nobody else can read the books or find copies for the next ten years, depriving them of my crucial wisdom.
For what? For monetary gain. If hoarding did not affect anyone else, then it's not a real problem (although it drives prices up, which is what hoarders want).
When people want to legitimately create value through developing websites on domain names, but are deprived of access to a huge majority of domain names which are hoarded, that, to me is a problem.
The solutions actually would have been simple. Either domains cannot be resold (as is the case with radio frequencies and licences), or domains must be developed within 6 months, or forfeited, or, bottom line, google and other companies refuse to make it lucrative to speculate and hoard.
TO me that's what do no evil means, and what making a positive contribution to the community means.
I don't care what an individual does, but I DO care when a company like google contributes to damaging the Internet, which is no longer a luxury item, but an essential to business, the economy, etc.
Google has done great things, and also caused great damage. I'd like to see the latter stop.
1. If the overwhelming majority of available real estate is held by companies doing nothing with it, yes, there's a very practical problem. Imagine what happens if most of the farmland in North America was owned by people who find it economically beneficial for them to let it rot. Do you see the practical problem?
I'm afraid I can't. I can't follow the reasoning when you suggest an imaginary impossibility to make your point. Are you suggesting that an overwhelming majority of real estate (or available domains) might be held by squatters? If so, it would be interesting to know the source of this data. Let me remind you of your words: overwhelming majority.
The Morgan was an antique car, and just an off-hand example of buying something material to hold it for possible appreciation. A violin. a rare book, and many other things qualify to make my point. Sorry for the poor choice.
The fact that domain names can be hoarded at all is a flaw in the design of the network.
Flaws, warts, rough edges. I'll figure a way to live with them if the alternative is restrictions that are based on what Tom, Dick or Harry thinks are a disease.
The point is, whether Google should actively incentivize the parking of domain names as part of the Adsense program?
Given their "do no evil" motto, and their mission "to organize the worlds information", I'd say - no, they shouldn't do this.
Domain parking is certainly not "doing evil" (what is evil these days? Scamming 50 billion Dollars from investors?). But it is not "doing good" either. The world as a whole would be better off without domain parking. (Yes, yes, the individuals parking a domain may profit from the parking and earn high-whatever-figures, but that's not the point.) And given their "do no evil" motto, Google should not do it.
Given their mission "to organize the worlds information", Google should also not do this. A parked domain can hardly be called "information". Think of a newspaper that carries just a beautiful logo (e.g. "The Elbonian Standard") and then thirty-one empty pages. Would Google scan this? Would they add it to Google news? Is it worth reading? Is it worth keeping? Is it carrying any information whatsoever? I don't think so.
So - let's just call it what it is: blatant money making on Google's side. They just are beyond the point of caring for their own mottos and missions; they just want/need to make money. That's why this move is good for Google in the short run. That's why they will deflect any criticism on this.
BTW, their motto and mission will kill Google at some point in time. Eventually people will realize that believing Google to "do no evil" and "to organize the worlds information" was wrong, just another lie from another corporate.
That's something for the Domain Names forum.
People like attorneys and arbitrageurs can easily slip back and forth between doing good and evil and rationalize the outcome by pointing out that some good may have been done along the way. It is the magic woven by the confidence man or the snake oil vendor and it takes an agile mind to catch it.
I agree that Google is probably doing this because of their quarterly reports and stock price and that they have slippped here from doing good to survival mode.
That's not evil but the nature of the beast, something we will have to be acutely aware of in the coming months because this beastly nature will be appearing in so many unlikely places.
I'm not advocating a change in our attitudes just because the new administration used that theme in its campaign but because the Bernie Madoffs of the world and their scams will bring the house down. Whether you are stealing $50 bln or three seconds of my time you're on their side, not mine and you're the enemy.
I did not live through the Great Depression but I plan to survive this one and I am going to be ruthless in my economies, you should be too. If you're still singing the tunes of the 'twenties, welcome to the 'thirties. Obamian policies are much like those that gave us the economy of 1938, please read your history this is not a joke.
Or, will this create an insignificant number of new publisher pages?
I think it's martinibuster who has pointed out the system needs more advertisers, this opening up of the domain program would seem, at least on the surface, to be doing just the opposite - bringing in new publishers (or publisher pages) without bringing in any new advertisers.
FarmBoy
