4 ms·

I'm ok if this leads to de-squatting. I wish there was some kind of bulk price increase. I know all the issues but if you own 1,000 domains you're just sittin

I'm ok if this leads to de-squatting. I wish there was some kind of bulk price increase. I know all the issues but if you own 1,000 domains you're just sitting on, that 1,001th you're trying to snatch should be more expensive Hoarding domains for ransom shouldn't be a business model I guess another model is you could regulate the transfer and selling of domains to a certain cap. If the most you can legally get is say $5000, then people wouldn't collect and squat in such giant volumes

geniusmind 3y ago
[flagged]
autoexec 3y ago
> I'm ok if this leads to de-squatting. It wont. If anything it'll just consolidate the squatted domains into fewer hands. Progressively increasing prices for each domain purchased seems pretty reasonable, but unless it raises very quickly it'll still end up being worth it to a wealthy few. Combining those raising prices with capping the resell price of domains seems like it would actually work! Someone somewhere might find it worth it to buy their 600th domain at a huge price, but if they can only sell that domain for a small fraction of what they paid for it they'll lose money if they aren't planning to use it themselves.
- kristopolous 3y ago
  There's a balance I'm trying to strike. If you're sitting on say, news.com then I get it, that's a good asset to have. It's those other groups that throw combinatoric dictionaries at the registrars that force the latest round of startups to have a bunch of letters smashed together for a name, they're the problem. I've got half a mind to just go with katakana for my next company, register a domain like ツイッター.com and just say "well, there's 46 characters. You can memorize it in like 2 weeks. Not my problem!"
- Spivak 3y ago
  > It wont. If anything it'll just consolidate the squatted domains into fewer hands. This is actually great if your end is to get rid of squatting, consolidate the market into a number of throats that's feasible to choke and then do it via regulation.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Seems like it'd be easier to get throat choking regulation in place before ownership is consolidated into a small number of people with deep pockets, vast resources, and disproportionate influence. The nice thing about policy is that it can be applied to huge numbers of entities instantly. Why risk creating behemoths too big to fight before you even start?
    - Spivak 3y ago
      Because big behemoths have legal departments and compliance officers and actually have to follow the law because many eyes are on them constantly. Deep pockets make juicy lawsuit targets. You're right that the law applies to many people at once but you only have to actually follow the law if you're big enough for someone to care about you.
  - skinner927 3y ago
    Regulations have never worked when there are few throats to choke. The few either band together and create their own regulatory association or bribe, sorry, lobby their way out of it.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> If the most you can legally get is say $5000, then people wouldn't collect and squat in such giant volumes Quite the opposite. They squat on giant volumes so they can stick ordinary people for $2500 instead of $10. They should just prohibit selling domain names. It would solve 99% of the problem because then they couldn't use domain parking pages or otherwise openly offer them for sale. Someone would still manage to sell million dollar domains by some subterfuge where it's claimed to be part of the sale of a company, but that was never the problem and has enough overhead to make it uneconomical for the low value domains that cause them to register every plausible variant of English text.
- arp242 3y ago
  > They should just prohibit selling domain names. So Joe Squatter will retain ownership, but permits company.com to use it for 99 years for the same price as he would have sold it for. Or something like that... I don't really disagree with you as such, but where there's a will, there's way, and never underestimate the creativity and twattery people will come up with to make a buck. Banning this will be hard, and I'm not sure it's worth the downsides.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > So Joe Squatter will retain ownership, but permits company.com to use it for 99 years for the same price as he would have sold it for. Then company.com is going to object that they would lose the domain they've had for 99 years or be subject to an extortionate price increase, because they really actually do want to own it. And you can prohibit leasing domain names too. I mean this isn't that hard. You know who these companies are. You prohibit sales, you go to the website of the company trying to sell a million domains and see what scam they're running now, and two hours later you prohibit that too. Eventually they'll make a mistake and do something which is explicitly prohibited and forfeit all of their domains. "We should not attempt to solve this problem because the first attempt might be less than 100% effective" is pointless defeatism. So what if they come up with a way around it? Prohibit whatever they do until they go out of business.

geniusmind 3y ago

[flagged]

autoexec 3y ago

> I'm ok if this leads to de-squatting. It wont. If anything it'll just consolidate the squatted domains into fewer hands. Progressively increasing prices for each domain purchased seems pretty reasonable, but unless it raises very quickly it'll still end up being worth it to a wealthy few. Combining those raising prices with capping the resell price of domains seems like it would actually work! Someone somewhere might find it worth it to buy their 600th domain at a huge price, but if they can only sell that domain for a small fraction of what they paid for it they'll lose money if they aren't planning to use it themselves.

kristopolous 3y ago
There's a balance I'm trying to strike. If you're sitting on say, news.com then I get it, that's a good asset to have. It's those other groups that throw combinatoric dictionaries at the registrars that force the latest round of startups to have a bunch of letters smashed together for a name, they're the problem. I've got half a mind to just go with katakana for my next company, register a domain like ツイッター.com and just say "well, there's 46 characters. You can memorize it in like 2 weeks. Not my problem!"
Spivak 3y ago
> It wont. If anything it'll just consolidate the squatted domains into fewer hands. This is actually great if your end is to get rid of squatting, consolidate the market into a number of throats that's feasible to choke and then do it via regulation.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Seems like it'd be easier to get throat choking regulation in place before ownership is consolidated into a small number of people with deep pockets, vast resources, and disproportionate influence. The nice thing about policy is that it can be applied to huge numbers of entities instantly. Why risk creating behemoths too big to fight before you even start?
  - Spivak 3y ago
    Because big behemoths have legal departments and compliance officers and actually have to follow the law because many eyes are on them constantly. Deep pockets make juicy lawsuit targets. You're right that the law applies to many people at once but you only have to actually follow the law if you're big enough for someone to care about you.
- skinner927 3y ago
  Regulations have never worked when there are few throats to choke. The few either band together and create their own regulatory association or bribe, sorry, lobby their way out of it.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> If the most you can legally get is say $5000, then people wouldn't collect and squat in such giant volumes Quite the opposite. They squat on giant volumes so they can stick ordinary people for $2500 instead of $10. They should just prohibit selling domain names. It would solve 99% of the problem because then they couldn't use domain parking pages or otherwise openly offer them for sale. Someone would still manage to sell million dollar domains by some subterfuge where it's claimed to be part of the sale of a company, but that was never the problem and has enough overhead to make it uneconomical for the low value domains that cause them to register every plausible variant of English text.

arp242 3y ago
> They should just prohibit selling domain names. So Joe Squatter will retain ownership, but permits company.com to use it for 99 years for the same price as he would have sold it for. Or something like that... I don't really disagree with you as such, but where there's a will, there's way, and never underestimate the creativity and twattery people will come up with to make a buck. Banning this will be hard, and I'm not sure it's worth the downsides.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > So Joe Squatter will retain ownership, but permits company.com to use it for 99 years for the same price as he would have sold it for. Then company.com is going to object that they would lose the domain they've had for 99 years or be subject to an extortionate price increase, because they really actually do want to own it. And you can prohibit leasing domain names too. I mean this isn't that hard. You know who these companies are. You prohibit sales, you go to the website of the company trying to sell a million domains and see what scam they're running now, and two hours later you prohibit that too. Eventually they'll make a mistake and do something which is explicitly prohibited and forfeit all of their domains. "We should not attempt to solve this problem because the first attempt might be less than 100% effective" is pointless defeatism. So what if they come up with a way around it? Prohibit whatever they do until they go out of business.