3 ms·

Intellectual property attorneys have fought the most to keep whois data public and accurate. Those who buy and sell domains are another group who are annoyed t

by aeden 8y ago

Intellectual property attorneys have fought the most to keep whois data public and accurate. Those who buy and sell domains are another group who are annoyed that it is no longer public. They can easily solve the sell-side issue but when they want to buy a domain, if the owner is not specifically trying to sell it then it becomes more difficult to get ahold of them to make an offer.

gist 8y ago
This is exactly true. (And it makes sense given who you are. I remember your name from the formation of ICANN btw.) However I will add something else. If it becomes hard for people/companies/startups who want to buy domains (.com as you know is all that typically counts) (or for brokers etc) then there will be a shift away from .com because of that frustration. Right now people start perhaps with another TLD but once they get successful they try to get .com almost always. And that supports the market price of .com So sure the big time people (who charge 'high' prices) will make it possible to be reached. However there is another tier that either forgets to put up contact info (or it's out of date on a web page that gets spam) or does not even know they have something of value. Those owners, if they can't be reached, will miss out. And the buyers would be more likely to then go for another TLD. Hence .com in general could loose value. [1] Not overnight but will happen. [1] I both own domains (since 90's) and help people buy domains. This is actually my big concern with 'help people buy domains'.
lucb1e 8y ago
I'd be perfectly fine with IP attorneys having to go through law enforcement to get the law enforced. As for buying and selling a domain, I've commented on that in an earlier sibling thread: > If it's important enough, I guess the registrar could be used as relay. >But I do see your point. On the one hand, I'd suggest an optional "reach the owner" part of whois, where one could list a physical or digital address (doesn't even have to be email, I sometimes list social network presence on "about" pages as contact method for unimportant sites, to prevent spam). But on the other hand, we already have a place where you can optionally put your contact details: the very website we're talking about. And there you can apply any anti-spam measures you want, which you cannot do if it's in a public directory somewhere. > I think it's fine if people have to publish their contact info themselves. At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17483637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17483637

by aeden 8y ago

gist 8y ago

This is exactly true. (And it makes sense given who you are. I remember your name from the formation of ICANN btw.) However I will add something else. If it becomes hard for people/companies/startups who want to buy domains (.com as you know is all that typically counts) (or for brokers etc) then there will be a shift away from .com because of that frustration. Right now people start perhaps with another TLD but once they get successful they try to get .com almost always. And that supports the market price of .com So sure the big time people (who charge 'high' prices) will make it possible to be reached. However there is another tier that either forgets to put up contact info (or it's out of date on a web page that gets spam) or does not even know they have something of value. Those owners, if they can't be reached, will miss out. And the buyers would be more likely to then go for another TLD. Hence .com in general could loose value. [1] Not overnight but will happen. [1] I both own domains (since 90's) and help people buy domains. This is actually my big concern with 'help people buy domains'.

lucb1e 8y ago

I'd be perfectly fine with IP attorneys having to go through law enforcement to get the law enforced. As for buying and selling a domain, I've commented on that in an earlier sibling thread: > If it's important enough, I guess the registrar could be used as relay. >But I do see your point. On the one hand, I'd suggest an optional "reach the owner" part of whois, where one could list a physical or digital address (doesn't even have to be email, I sometimes list social network presence on "about" pages as contact method for unimportant sites, to prevent spam). But on the other hand, we already have a place where you can optionally put your contact details: the very website we're talking about. And there you can apply any anti-spam measures you want, which you cannot do if it's in a public directory somewhere. > I think it's fine if people have to publish their contact info themselves. At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17483637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17483637