Re: Re[2]: [ga] domain tastinmg comments

[<chris@xxxxxx>]

Again, I do not understand the relationship between stolen credit cards to the 
AGP. About the double opt-in, you could not have put it better. The only reason 
that registrars do not want that kind of system is because domain names are 
sometimes an impulse buy and the registrars feel they might lose sales because 
someone had second thoughts. However, if they have second thoughts now, they 
have 5 days to drop it, so the registrars are better off with double opt-in 
because if the user has second thoughts, they have them right then, not 5 days 
later. Double opt-in can be done with a second confirmation page. That works 
fine. Either way, they get a chance to check to make sure they are registering 
the name they want.

Chris McElroy


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Shane Kinsch 
  To: chris@xxxxxx 
  Cc: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 3:28 PM
  Subject: RE: Re[2]: [ga] domain tastinmg comments


  Chris – If there is no AGP, then the registrars are stuck with the fraud and 
any other bad behavior.  The Registrar biz is a highly competitive business so 
register and transfer your portfolios to Global Internet http://gi.net  ;)   
Regardless, the cost is too great for the registrar in a cut-throat business to 
have to absorb fraudulent activity without having some sort of recourse in 
refunding most if not all of the registration costs.

  People don’t want to double-opt-in.  I can say that because of personal 
experience.  Timing is everything.  If I were to register a few domains, the 
first think I think of is, “I want it now”.  I don’t want to wait on an email 
or dependant on a 3rd party to deliver the confirmation message.  You can 
conduct your own study and you’ll see it holds true.  The end user ( now use to 
one click registration ) will highly complain about some double opt-in system 
on each name they register.   For example, I have Media customers who register 
10 – 20 domains at a time and would cause too much strain on their operation to 
have to ack each registration at this point, keep in mind, the whole purpose of 
the email ack is that they read the whole thing to verify the domain name being 
registered is the same one they are verifying?  Why not just send them to 
another page that says, are you really really sure you want to register this 
domain?

  Double opt-in doesn’t take into consideration my primary concern of 
fraudulent registrations.  The perp will still acknowledge their domain 
registrations with a throw away gmail account leaving Registrars left holding 
the bag of crap names.  Double opt-in is just not feasible IMHO.

  Shane Kinsch

  From: chris@xxxxxx [mailto:chris@xxxxxx] 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 2:00 PM
  To: Shane Kinsch; 'Karl Peters - TLDA'
  Cc: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: Re: Re[2]: [ga] domain tastinmg comments
  Importance: High

   

  What study did youn use to determine that double opt in would not work? I 
always love it when someone has an opinion that something should be done the 
way they like it and dismiss everything else without looking at it.

   

  For every reason you can cite where the AGP benefits anyone, I can show you 
five ways it is abused.

   

  Chris McElroy

   

   

    ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: Shane Kinsch 

    To: 'Karl Peters - TLDA' 

    Cc: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

    Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:21 PM

    Subject: RE: Re[2]: [ga] domain tastinmg comments

     

    Hi Karl –

    I’m referring to a broad scale and wide abuse of the AGP.  This situation 
is more of an “opportunity” they are exploiting you with and has nothing to do 
with tasting domains, unless they actually parked it and analyzed the 
traffic/revenue over a 1 year period w/o contact the .org/.net registrants.  
The people (not Registrars, but possibly) that have engaged in the activity of 
registering .com versions of your .org or .net and contacting you see what 
they’re doing as a benefit to the .org/.net registrant.  More often, and it’s 
almost a guarantee, the speculator will just register the .com version of a 
.net/.org and call it good, park it and making no contact with the other TLD 
registrants unless they wanted to flip it.

    Overall, the people that pay the $295 “acquisition fee” in my opinion 
actually want the .com variant and it possibly was registered previously when 
they choose the .net/.org/.tv/.ws/.cc, etc. that is now available.  Keep in 
mind, there is a minimum backorder fee for NameJet ($65 for some) and SnapNames 
($100 for some) and possibly go to auction at much higher than $295.

    The act of registering the .com to flip it to the registrant of a .net/.org 
is not domain tasting.  Domain tasting overall is at a grand scale, not minor.  
It’s the major players that have abused this, or I should say .. found a 
weakness and exploited it.

    Removing the AGP all together without providing for a means where a 
Registrar can recoup their expenses from fraudulent activities won’t work and 
is wrong (double opt-in won’t work either).  The gaps need to be filled and 
filled with discouraging fines or overhead expenses that break the abusers 
business model without distressing legitimate Registrars.

    Shane

     

    From: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Karl Peters - TLDA
    Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 11:54 AM
    To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Shane Kinsch
    Cc: jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Subject: Re[2]: [ga] domain tastinmg comments

     

     

    > In general, you pay a fine of $2,851,200 just to sample 18,000,000 domain 
names in a year and keep only the ones that barely pay for themselves.  Thats 
not good business sense anyway you look at it.  I would estimate a much higher 
drop rate such as 90+%.

    >  

    > If ICANN would enact a penalty as such, that anything over a nominal 
percentage is charged $0.20/drop would take care of this and everyone else.  
The legit registrars are happy and the tasters/kiters will go away.  Its not 
feasible for them to keep operating.

     

    So you want to talk about numbers and feasibility instead of right and 
wrong? OK...

           Let's say a scammer picks up 500 domains under this tasting policy 
and sends out solicitations as we have described and discussed to sell them at 
$295 per domain for people to "complete" their registrations of the major TLDs' 
domains of their name. 

           Let's say that of these five hundred names that are tied up and 
unavailable for consumers for a week (perhaps the one time they will try for 
that name for some time to come, if they are not sufficiently skeptical and 
aware of the effects of tasting), they successfully sell 2 of them, but for 
less than advertised. 

           Let's say they settle for $500.00 for the two registrations they 
sell and then return the other 498 domains at $0.20 each penalty, or $99.60. 
This scammer just made a profit of $400.40 for one week of free e-mails based 
on improper marketing of unregistered domains and I still have no example of 
any corporation who has used this program as it was intended.

     

    -Karl E. Peters