RE: [registrars] Variations on the current domain name model - proposed registrar workshop for Luxembourg

["Tim Ruiz" <tim@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, IP constituency or not, I am not thrilled that dozens of names using
our trademarks are abused this way every day.

How many times can a name be added and deleted and monetized, and then
finally deleted one last time with no cost before we should be concerned
about the practice? What volume of this activity should we consider
acceptable?

And actually, we have had customer service issues over this practice. And I
would imagine any registrar that provides backorder services has had as
well.

And in our budget discussion yesterday it appears that ICANN is not
considering this practice in calculating the failed ADD ratio when
considering forgiveness of the per-registrar variable fee. So it's possible
that registrars whose business model is centered on this practice have been,
or could be forgiven of those fees. Hopefully Kurt takes a look at that and
makes any necessary adjustments.

And these are just some of the problems that we can identify today. There
will no doubt be other *enterprising* concepts using this loophole down the
road.

We could argue all day about whether the policy and/or RRA need to be
changed in general regarding this practice. It's no surprise that there's a
split view among registrars, primarily among those who have revenue models
depending on it and those who don't.

But at the very least there are specific aspects of this practice that I
believe make it worth our time to consider tightening it up.

Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ross Rader
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 3:13 PM
To: registrars@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [registrars] Variations on the current domain name model -
proposed registrar workshop for Luxembourg

The only responses I've seen to my message (admittedly, 
I've only done a quick scan - I'm actually off site for 
the next two weeks and supposed to be doing things other 
than my normal Tucows responsibilities...so I must be 
brief...) further elaborate on the problems that other 
people are having with the system. IP problems are 
probably best championed by the IP constituency, Registry 
problems are best championed by the Registry constituency. 
My primary point is that this constituency has a large 
problem with managing workflow and we need to focus on 
dealing with the priorities that we have in front of us 
and not falling prey to every shiny agenda item that 
someone drops in our lap.

These behaviors don't add to my cost, they don't cause me 
problems accessing the registry and my customers aren't 
complaining about the practice. I have some sympathy for 
Bob's indication that this is tying up some population of 
domain names from getting into the hands of paying 
customers, but as a percentage of the whole, I'd wager 
that this is in fact a very small amount.

Regulating add grace is simply going to add to the amount 
of regulation that registrars have to contend with. It is 
not going to stop the cred/thread race, it is not going to 
force the release of domain names after they expire, its 
not going to cause an increase or decrease in the cost we 
pay to the registries and it certainly isn't solving some 
burning customer service issues we have.

Unless we're strictly talking about making the numbers 
look pretty, I'm having a hard time understanding why this 
is an issue that we need to be concerned with.

On Tue, 31 May 2005 10:30:28 -0700
  "Jay Westerdal" <jwesterdal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Ross,
> Let me brief you on the abuse that is taking place.
> 
>>> I still don't really see what 
>>> our issue is or why we would possibly care about what 
>>> arguments VGRS may or may not have...
> 
>For one, abuse of IP rights. Several of the domains being
> registered for 4 days are typo names. Very famous marks 
>that
> do receive traffic. Try and to a UDRP on a domain that 
>lasts
> 4 days and has no whois record. Two, a registrar is not
> required to publish the whois record for five days. 
>Hence,
> they could continually hide an abuser who is doing the
> registrations for 4 days and leave no way to stop that 
>abuse
> on their mark. Three, 400K domains today. Yes in the 
>future
> months it will be millions of domains a day. A scale 
>that would
> eclipse Tucows in size just to monetize, delete, and 
>start over.
> All at no cost to them, the cost will be paid but it 
>will not
> be by them.
> 
> I have given it more thought and I believe each 
>registrar
> should receive 100 free deletes a month to allow for 
>testing.
> Then after that 1 free delete per 200 domains 
>registered. 
> Registries would charge $0.75 for any delete in the 5 
>day
> grace period exceeding their quota.
> 
> Verisign has said over and over again that they are 
>powerless
> to stop it as they are contractually obligated to allow 
>the
> abuse. Only a consensus policy could force the abuse to 
>halt.
> This may not be the most pressing issue Registrars face 
>but
> it is one that causes pain to IP holders and they are 
>our
> registrars' customers. I believe we should act. Please 
>discuss
> the motion I have drafted, I would like to formally 
>submit it
> to the list on Friday after it gets more baked.
> 
> Jay
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>From: Mitchell, Champ 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 8:29 AM
> To: Tim Ruiz; Ross Rader
> Subject: RE: [registrars] Variations on the current 
>domain name model -
> proposed registrar workshop for Luxembourg
> 
> With due respect to Ross, I do not see our bylaws or 
>website as "burning
> priority issues". I can agree that whois and transfers 
>are probably more
> important to us than this. However, don't you think that 
>the diminution
> in threads per registrar and the whole game of creating 
>registrars for
> no reason other than to get more threads, often jut to 
>lease them, is a
> direct result of the grace period? I do. If they 
>couldn't use the grace
> period in an unintended and inappropriate manner to 
>avoid cost and risk,
> they would not do hundreds of thousands of registrations 
>with the
> intention to keep only the small fraction that appear 
>profitable. Even
> more abusive is the register, delete, reregister scam 
>--- and scam is
> what it is. Inevitably this impacts all legitimate 
>registrars.
> 
> Ross, I would never claim to be as knowledgeable as you 
>about the
> intricacies of the domain registration system, but over 
>30 years of
> experience has taught me that when one of my suppliers 
>is slammed, I
> always end up paying part of the cost. 
> 
> I completely agree with you that the registries, 
>particularly VeriSign,
> have the power to have addressed this long ago and have 
>failed to act.
>Frankly, I don't understand why, although I have heard 
>its rationale.
> Clearly you are right that they should take the lead. 
>However, this does
> not change the fact that ultimately the legitimate 
>registrars suffer
> from this conduct and, if as it appears on its face, 
>this is an abuse
> that can be easily corrected, it would seem that we 
>should support a
> correction.  Best, Champ
> 
> W. G. Champion Mitchell
> Chairman & CEO
> Network Solutions Inc.
> (703) 668-5200
> NetworkSolutions
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>From: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
>Tim Ruiz
> Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 10:05 AM
> To: Ross Rader
> Cc: jwesterdal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; 
>Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
> registrars@xxxxxxxx; faure@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [registrars] Variations on the current 
>domain name model -
> proposed registrar workshop for Luxembourg
> 
> I agree that registries should be concerned about this 
>practice. They
> may see some short term benefit to this activity but it 
>will be short
> lived.
> 
> Already there is at least one user doing repetative adds 
>and deletes for
> the same names to apparently benefit from the traffic 
>without ever
> really paying for the names.
> 
> In some cases these names infringe on the IP rights of 
>others but not
> long enough to always be seen.
> 
> It may only be a few players today but I don't think we 
>should be short
> sighted about this. Unchecked it WILL become many 
>millions of names per
> day.
> 
> Tim
>