Re: [ga] VeriSign to auction deleting domains!

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'd be delighted if all domains were sold at registry level from a single
source. However, the problem goes back to ICANN which administers the DNS on
a private enterprise basis, thereby creating a string of "middle men" who
feed off the DNS industry. If the DNS was administered by representatives of
the millions of internet users, then they (the At Large) could determine a
cost-based price for each domain name (say $1 a year) in the interests of
users, and that would remain the profit-margin for the Registry even when
deleting domains were "recycled" at auction... or the ordinary users could
determine a small percentage of unsought profits to donate to charities
instead.

All very idealistic, of course, but who's to say it wouldn't work?

The only Registries would be those who accepted the terms of the new
not-for-profit administration (since profit = money taken from the
registrant) and there would be no registrars at all unless they provided
some different service which people actually wanted to pay for. All domain
names would be bought direct. If you look at Nominet in UK, it's
not-for-profit and far cheaper than .info or .com or other entities that are
administered for profit. Admittedly it still uses registrars - but it
doesn't have to.

Yes, my "logic" would indeed eliminate registrars, but only if ICANN was
reclaimed by the actual people who use the Internet and its Domain Names.
They would need to set in place the contracts and agreements under which the
not-for-profit or charitable Registries would operate.

We're only talking about strings of numbers. You don't need to construct a
multi-million pound industry around a commodity like that. Sure, prices have
come down since the days of Verisign monopoly, but that's because the
concept was flawed from the outset.

Anyway, I digress. I don't mind Buy Domains getting a domain I want if they
outbid me. I DO mind them getting the domain if they use some sneaky
backdoor registrar which they've bought out, and I don't even get a chance
to bid. I just want ONE simple mechanism where they and I can bid together
and know that the highest bidder gets the domain they want.

At the moment, with over 100 new ICANN-accredited registrars set up to
'game' the deleting domain system, mostly for just a handful of middlemen
like Pool or Snapnames or BuyDomains perhaps, you have pure lottery - and
the potential for further mayhem. You have Tucows proposing one system of
auction, and Verisign saying no, actually, we're going to do it, and Pool
today saying well actually they're never going to delete at all because
we're gonna renew them before they can, and all ICANN's careful plans for
Redemption and Deletion processes seem to have gone out of the window. It's
chaos. You're left with Verisign wondering if they could - in fact - claim
ownership of domain names which have failed to renew, because they're in
"their" Registry waiting to be sold again anyway, and if that is the case
(they are thinking) then who could actually stop them auctioning the best
ones off direct to the public. They may have a case?

I do not respect this confusion. I don't think it's a good outcome.

The distribution of the DNS should be clear, fair and open - and ideally it
should be run at registry level (like the UK) as not-for-profit or charity
(and protected by the community of internet users).Yrs from Utopia!

Richard H


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George Kirikos" <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "George Kirikos" <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2005 12:09 AM
Subject: Re: [ga] VeriSign to auction deleting domains!


> Hello,
>
> --- Richard Henderson <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > A registry administers the supply of domain names already. I can't
> > see for
> > the life of me why it can't just sell deleting domains as well. If
>
> By that "logic", we should eliminate registrars, too. Cut out the
> middlemen, and deal with only the registry. That's a step backwards to
> the "bad old days" (well, "good old days" for VeriSign), when they
> owned NSI, and NSI had no competitors like OpenSRS, eNom, Dotster,
> GoDaddy, etc.