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Why don't unused domains have an expiration?
It seems the vast majority of domain names are unused due to squatters. This, in my mind, stifles creativity. Is there anything being done about the companies that hoard 1,000's of domain names without doing anything with them?
- 77yy77yy 4y agoPeople are paying for them.
- obpe 4y agoJust wait for renewal and snipe it before they renew. I have been able to get several squatted domains this way.
- Centrino 4y agoHow do you know they are “unused”? The web and e-mail are just some services on the internet, there are many others, you can invent your own. These services could be on subdomains or hosts that are only known to those who need to know. In other words, the use of domains could be private within a group. Even if this sounds unrealistic, it’s an alibi the squatters could use to escape forced expiration. Only if the Domain has no functioning authorative name servers, could you claim the domain is truly “unused”.
- WheelsAtLarge 4y agoLook at it from the point of view of the domain provider. If they made it mandatory for people to use their domain they would not sell as many. It would be nice for say, "cat.com." Many people would want that but what about, "Ilikecats.com" Maybe people might want it but maybe not. I bet they get better revenue under the current system. If it was the other way around they would have made the change already. The idea is not new.
- jfengel 4y agoIt's hard to define "doing anything". Yeah, a lot of domain squatters are obvious, but only because there's no reason not to. If you passed a rule that domains had to be "used", they'd do whatever minimal effort it took to "use" it. There's no rule you can define that can distinguish people genuinely making little effort on their own pages (like a resume that hasn't been updated since 1997) and a squatter pretending. The main thing being done about squatters is that squatting costs money. Not much, but when you multiply it by thousands of domain names, it adds up. If you have a thousand domain names, and you can only sell one a year, it will force you to charge tens of thousands of dollars for that one you sell just to break even. And that keeps people from buying your domain. It does lead to a deadweight loss: people squat, looking for an easy payday, losing money while costing everybody else the opportunity to use a domain for something useful. That sucks. But there isn't any way to improve it that doesn't make something else worse, so we live with it.