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Have any TLDs attempted to implement a property tax on domains according to value to reduce cyber squatting? To implement a property tax, Glen Weyl and Eric Pos

by yonran 7y ago

Have any TLDs attempted to implement a property tax on domains according to value to reduce cyber squatting? To implement a property tax, Glen Weyl and Eric Posner have proposed using self-assessment so that users pay what they want (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2818494 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2818494 and https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-Democracy/dp/0691177503/ https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-...)

rhizome 7y ago
What are the terms by which value is measured?
- yonran 7y ago
  In the paper by Glen Weyl linked above, the property tax should be set at about 1/normal turnover rate (e.g. 1/30 years = 3.3% per year), owners should declare their own assessed value for which they pay the tax (e.g. on the $1500 asking price in the article, the tax could be about $50/year assuming a 3.3% tax rate), and then if someone else wishes to buy the property they can purchase at the same self-assessed value.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    That sounds terrible. Companies should not have to pay millions of dollars per year to keep their domain safe. If a website-needing company pays based on how badly it would hurt them to lose that site, it would destroy their margins. If they pay a more reasonable amount, or if they're just a smaller company, they're vulnerable to competitors kicking them offline at a whim. Land is pretty much the only area where taxing a significant percentage of value makes sense, and even then it's frustrating and awful to do it with a buyout system.
  - rhizome 7y ago
    So the holder assigns their own "make me move" price? For e.g. Disney this would be "infinity," and I've taken a math class recently enough to know that 3.3% of infinity is infinity.
    - yonran 7y ago
      fyi in Weyl’s book, he says that to avoid this problem, “Possessors would be allowed to group their assets into clusters and to pull them apart, as they choose.” In other words, Disney could bundle the domain with the business (which is already listed for only $243 billion, not “infinity”) http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s11222.pdf http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s11222.pdf I think in general the business should be bundled with the domain, although I think that probably there should be some oversight preventing completely unrelated domains from being bundled together.
Avamander 7y ago
I know that having a domain name is a fun way to get to know a lot of computer-related concepts, making that opportunity less accessible for people does not sound like a good thing to me - I want future kids to be able to play with internet the same way, don't know if you relate or not. Not to mention if domains were more expensive we'd have more link-rot, which is already really nasty.
- yonran 7y ago
  We can apply the same techniques used for progressive property taxes to prevent the two problems you identified: e.g., an owner-occupier exemption for a single domain name per person, and a deduction for investments in building the domain’s brand so that a domain with high pagerank or marketing investment pays a lower tax.
oh_sigh 7y ago
I don't understand how you can ever have a just society if society can deem at any point that your property is too valuable for you to hold anymore. Of course they happens in society today, but I don't see how making it easier for property to be forcibly reallocated would help create a more just society.
- yonran 7y ago
  Do you realize that the reason the squatter abandoned the domain (instead of keeping it forever) is the $8/year registry fee? My question is why should the squatter pay only $8 per year, and not, say, $50?
  - pests 7y ago
    Why should they pay $50? What are you charging for above cost of service?
    - yonran 7y ago
      When speculators hold onto domain names without using them, their right to exclude imposes a cost on the other member of society who wishes to use the property productively. So like progressive property taxes in general, a domain tax should be high enough not only to pay for the direct cost of services, but also to discourage idle speculators and encourage owners to use the domain productively.
  - emiliobumachar 7y ago
    Collateral damage prevention. A poor-ish hobbyist on the fence about creating a website or not would be discouraged by a higher fee.
  - ulucs 7y ago
    As a Glen Weyl-esque solution, make an owner of x domains pay x dollars for each domain they own. This way personal users get cheap domains, and we extract quite a lot of money from squatters.
- 7y ago

by yonran 7y ago

rhizome 7y ago

What are the terms by which value is measured?

yonran 7y ago
In the paper by Glen Weyl linked above, the property tax should be set at about 1/normal turnover rate (e.g. 1/30 years = 3.3% per year), owners should declare their own assessed value for which they pay the tax (e.g. on the $1500 asking price in the article, the tax could be about $50/year assuming a 3.3% tax rate), and then if someone else wishes to buy the property they can purchase at the same self-assessed value.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  That sounds terrible. Companies should not have to pay millions of dollars per year to keep their domain safe. If a website-needing company pays based on how badly it would hurt them to lose that site, it would destroy their margins. If they pay a more reasonable amount, or if they're just a smaller company, they're vulnerable to competitors kicking them offline at a whim. Land is pretty much the only area where taxing a significant percentage of value makes sense, and even then it's frustrating and awful to do it with a buyout system.
- rhizome 7y ago
  So the holder assigns their own "make me move" price? For e.g. Disney this would be "infinity," and I've taken a math class recently enough to know that 3.3% of infinity is infinity.
  - yonran 7y ago
    fyi in Weyl’s book, he says that to avoid this problem, “Possessors would be allowed to group their assets into clusters and to pull them apart, as they choose.” In other words, Disney could bundle the domain with the business (which is already listed for only $243 billion, not “infinity”) http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s11222.pdf http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s11222.pdf I think in general the business should be bundled with the domain, although I think that probably there should be some oversight preventing completely unrelated domains from being bundled together.

Avamander 7y ago

I know that having a domain name is a fun way to get to know a lot of computer-related concepts, making that opportunity less accessible for people does not sound like a good thing to me - I want future kids to be able to play with internet the same way, don't know if you relate or not. Not to mention if domains were more expensive we'd have more link-rot, which is already really nasty.

yonran 7y ago
We can apply the same techniques used for progressive property taxes to prevent the two problems you identified: e.g., an owner-occupier exemption for a single domain name per person, and a deduction for investments in building the domain’s brand so that a domain with high pagerank or marketing investment pays a lower tax.

oh_sigh 7y ago

I don't understand how you can ever have a just society if society can deem at any point that your property is too valuable for you to hold anymore. Of course they happens in society today, but I don't see how making it easier for property to be forcibly reallocated would help create a more just society.

yonran 7y ago
Do you realize that the reason the squatter abandoned the domain (instead of keeping it forever) is the $8/year registry fee? My question is why should the squatter pay only $8 per year, and not, say, $50?
- pests 7y ago
  Why should they pay $50? What are you charging for above cost of service?
  - yonran 7y ago
    When speculators hold onto domain names without using them, their right to exclude imposes a cost on the other member of society who wishes to use the property productively. So like progressive property taxes in general, a domain tax should be high enough not only to pay for the direct cost of services, but also to discourage idle speculators and encourage owners to use the domain productively.
- emiliobumachar 7y ago
  Collateral damage prevention. A poor-ish hobbyist on the fence about creating a website or not would be discouraged by a higher fee.
- ulucs 7y ago
  As a Glen Weyl-esque solution, make an owner of x domains pay x dollars for each domain they own. This way personal users get cheap domains, and we extract quite a lot of money from squatters.
7y ago