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I’m surprised comments are saying it isn’t a thing. I was reading another thread a few days ago and people were saying it was very much a thing still and .com

I’m surprised comments are saying it isn’t a thing. I was reading another thread a few days ago and people were saying it was very much a thing still and .com names were going for insane prices and limiting opportunities for real ideas and websites to be made. I feel like there should be some process where you have to put a real website at the domain name in a certain time period or you lose it. And I mean a real website not those godaddy placeholders. It’s just another rent seeking scam like we get in real estate without something like that.

horsawlarway 5y ago
I think there's more nuance here - I have several domains (name related) that point to my router and serve solely private services, often on non-standard ports. They'll appear empty unless you happen to be scanning high-number random ports, but I'm using them and they're providing value to me.
CydeWeys 5y ago
> I feel like there should be some process where you have to put a real website at the domain name in a certain time period or you lose it. And I mean a real website not those godaddy placeholders. I don't see how that would work; there's so many issues with it. For one, domain prices would have to be radically increased to handle all of the additional labor costs stemming from these manual verifications of domain usage (as you're talking about making a subjective determination rather than a technical one a la "does this domain have nameservers and is it responding over HTTP[S]"). Or, as an alternative, you might need to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars up front to cover the costs of such a claim when initiating it, as currently happens with ICANN UDRP/URS. Secondly, I own a domain that I've had for well over a decade but which is not currently serving a website because I grew tired of paying the hosting company's fees every year and let it expire. However, I am still using that domain for email. Should I lose that domain? Should I be required to spin up some fake content, but not too fake, just to "park" it correctly? What's the minimum level of BS content I'd have to put up there to not be susceptible to losing it? And lastly, this just opens huge avenues of abuse in favor of the domain squatters, as it gives them another avenue by which to hijack existing valid registrations from people. E.g. here's some example abuse of an existing ICANN system (UDRP/URS for trademarks): https://domainnamewire.com/tag/reverse-domain-name-hijacking/ https://domainnamewire.com/tag/reverse-domain-name-hijacking... Add another system to potentially take domains over, but with an even lower bar to use, and you'll see domain hijacking attempts explode in number. Meanwhile the actual domain parkers will be fine, as they'll improve their website autogeneration scripts just enough (maybe using GPT-3 or similar) to generate plausible content that would meet the bar and doesn't look like a mere parked page.
- tjs8rj 5y ago
  Simply regulate domains like we already regulate business addresses and trademarks. You open an LLC, and if you continually fail expectations of profit, you lose it, along with your trademarks and domain. At the end of the day: domain squatters create negative value for society. They shouldn’t be allowed to exist
  - CydeWeys 5y ago
    So you would really want to change domain ownership, which is a simple $10/yr process, into an onerous hundreds of dollars per year business/TM registration type process? Talk about an anti-democratization of the web. What about all the hobbyists that would be forced out from doing so? Most domains would cease to exist as they simply wouldn't be worth continuing with under this draconian system. "Simply regulate domains" sounds like an absolute disaster to me. > At the end of the day: domain squatters create negative value for society. I don't disagree with you, but your proposed solution creates a much worse negative value for society. As it currently stands, anyone can get a domain name cheaply and easily; it just might not be their first choice. Under your system, no one would be able to get a domain name cheaply and easily. It'd be as much hassle as registering an LLC with your state.
    - ericwooley 5y ago
      It's not a 10$ per year thing anymore though, for any reasonable domain it's at least 2k, because of squatters and bullshit. Honestly, I don't think I agree with the solution as proposed, but IMO something does need to change, and this avenue could be refined. EG pay a reasonable fee to have the domains parking status be looked appealed. At the very least, we could probably solve cases where I had ownership, let it lapse and someone re-registered for the purpose of extortion. Even if the fee was the same as the extortion price, at least the squatter makes nothing and has just wasted their time. -- Another thought on expiration squatting specifically, is that there should be a grace period for the original owner to re register. Like 2 weeks. Enough that a site owner could notice the lapse, and get their site re-registered, without needing to compete with the automated bots. -- Another avenue could be domain owner reputation. Where you need to have a reasonable reputation to buy a recently expired domain. A bigger company could co sign for you for a fee, but they would be risking their own reputation. -- I think there are probably a lot of other, better ideas, and we should all persue them. If only there were the political will power to make it happen. There is probably already to many entrenched stakeholders to ever get real change. Maybe there should just be a DNS 2.0, the whole system is rethought from the ground up. Sounds like a potential Blockchain startup idea. I guess I'm about to spend the next week researching, and or writing a white paper.
danuker 5y ago
> limiting opportunities for real ideas and websites to be made I can't imagine this being the case. There are plenty of TLDs to choose from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains#ICANN-era_generic_top-level_domains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom...
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Imagine trying to get an old person to remember a .io address instead of .com. It's hard enough to get them to remember the name.
  - post-it 5y ago
    Old people don't remember URLs anyway. All they need is the name, and then they can either search it up or their browser will auto fill it or they'll click a link or a bookmark. I don't even remember any URLs beyond the top five or so sites I visit. Is Kijiji a .com or a .ca? No idea, but my browser knows.
layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
Ummm… You know, domain names have use cases other than hosting websites. It’s just a mapping from ASCII strings to IP addresses.
sokoloff 5y ago
I have some domains that I use internally or for email. Not every legitimate use of a domain requires hosting a website on it.
newdude116 5y ago
A name does not make or break a website. How about https://www.seat61.com/ https://www.seat61.com/ Yes, seat, train etc were taken. But he build a business out of it.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  https://www.Seat62.com https://www.Seat62.com is taken.

horsawlarway 5y ago

I think there's more nuance here - I have several domains (name related) that point to my router and serve solely private services, often on non-standard ports. They'll appear empty unless you happen to be scanning high-number random ports, but I'm using them and they're providing value to me.

CydeWeys 5y ago

> I feel like there should be some process where you have to put a real website at the domain name in a certain time period or you lose it. And I mean a real website not those godaddy placeholders. I don't see how that would work; there's so many issues with it. For one, domain prices would have to be radically increased to handle all of the additional labor costs stemming from these manual verifications of domain usage (as you're talking about making a subjective determination rather than a technical one a la "does this domain have nameservers and is it responding over HTTP[S]"). Or, as an alternative, you might need to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars up front to cover the costs of such a claim when initiating it, as currently happens with ICANN UDRP/URS. Secondly, I own a domain that I've had for well over a decade but which is not currently serving a website because I grew tired of paying the hosting company's fees every year and let it expire. However, I am still using that domain for email. Should I lose that domain? Should I be required to spin up some fake content, but not too fake, just to "park" it correctly? What's the minimum level of BS content I'd have to put up there to not be susceptible to losing it? And lastly, this just opens huge avenues of abuse in favor of the domain squatters, as it gives them another avenue by which to hijack existing valid registrations from people. E.g. here's some example abuse of an existing ICANN system (UDRP/URS for trademarks): https://domainnamewire.com/tag/reverse-domain-name-hijacking/ https://domainnamewire.com/tag/reverse-domain-name-hijacking... Add another system to potentially take domains over, but with an even lower bar to use, and you'll see domain hijacking attempts explode in number. Meanwhile the actual domain parkers will be fine, as they'll improve their website autogeneration scripts just enough (maybe using GPT-3 or similar) to generate plausible content that would meet the bar and doesn't look like a mere parked page.

tjs8rj 5y ago
Simply regulate domains like we already regulate business addresses and trademarks. You open an LLC, and if you continually fail expectations of profit, you lose it, along with your trademarks and domain. At the end of the day: domain squatters create negative value for society. They shouldn’t be allowed to exist
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  So you would really want to change domain ownership, which is a simple $10/yr process, into an onerous hundreds of dollars per year business/TM registration type process? Talk about an anti-democratization of the web. What about all the hobbyists that would be forced out from doing so? Most domains would cease to exist as they simply wouldn't be worth continuing with under this draconian system. "Simply regulate domains" sounds like an absolute disaster to me. > At the end of the day: domain squatters create negative value for society. I don't disagree with you, but your proposed solution creates a much worse negative value for society. As it currently stands, anyone can get a domain name cheaply and easily; it just might not be their first choice. Under your system, no one would be able to get a domain name cheaply and easily. It'd be as much hassle as registering an LLC with your state.
  - ericwooley 5y ago
    It's not a 10$ per year thing anymore though, for any reasonable domain it's at least 2k, because of squatters and bullshit. Honestly, I don't think I agree with the solution as proposed, but IMO something does need to change, and this avenue could be refined. EG pay a reasonable fee to have the domains parking status be looked appealed. At the very least, we could probably solve cases where I had ownership, let it lapse and someone re-registered for the purpose of extortion. Even if the fee was the same as the extortion price, at least the squatter makes nothing and has just wasted their time. -- Another thought on expiration squatting specifically, is that there should be a grace period for the original owner to re register. Like 2 weeks. Enough that a site owner could notice the lapse, and get their site re-registered, without needing to compete with the automated bots. -- Another avenue could be domain owner reputation. Where you need to have a reasonable reputation to buy a recently expired domain. A bigger company could co sign for you for a fee, but they would be risking their own reputation. -- I think there are probably a lot of other, better ideas, and we should all persue them. If only there were the political will power to make it happen. There is probably already to many entrenched stakeholders to ever get real change. Maybe there should just be a DNS 2.0, the whole system is rethought from the ground up. Sounds like a potential Blockchain startup idea. I guess I'm about to spend the next week researching, and or writing a white paper.

danuker 5y ago

> limiting opportunities for real ideas and websites to be made I can't imagine this being the case. There are plenty of TLDs to choose from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains#ICANN-era_generic_top-level_domains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom...

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Imagine trying to get an old person to remember a .io address instead of .com. It's hard enough to get them to remember the name.
- post-it 5y ago
  Old people don't remember URLs anyway. All they need is the name, and then they can either search it up or their browser will auto fill it or they'll click a link or a bookmark. I don't even remember any URLs beyond the top five or so sites I visit. Is Kijiji a .com or a .ca? No idea, but my browser knows.

layoutIfNeeded 5y ago

Ummm… You know, domain names have use cases other than hosting websites. It’s just a mapping from ASCII strings to IP addresses.

sokoloff 5y ago

I have some domains that I use internally or for email. Not every legitimate use of a domain requires hosting a website on it.

newdude116 5y ago

A name does not make or break a website. How about https://www.seat61.com/ https://www.seat61.com/ Yes, seat, train etc were taken. But he build a business out of it.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
https://www.Seat62.com https://www.Seat62.com is taken.