[ALAC] Fw: Interesting article about parked domains

Sun May 21 17:05:37 UTC 2017

Domain parking is not a new issue for At-Large. 
We have a long and interesting history related to this topic.

In 2007, there was a prevalent practice among a 
number of registrars and domainers called "domain 
tasting" 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting). 
In short it was a completely legitimate (that is 
not against any rules) proactive which allowed a 
domain to be registered and monetized, and if it 
did not prove profitable, to cancel the 
registration at no net cost (ie free). This 
allowed the "tasting" on many millions of domains 
per month. The practice was also used to some 
extent for disposable domains for generating spam 
(it was before phishing was common). If I 
remember correctly, less than 1% were kept 
because they proved profitable (often typos of 
real domain names). The ALAC requested a GNSO PDP 
to stop the practice. Once the new policy was 
developed and adopted, it made tasting to 
expensive to be practical in the general case.

The issue of parked monetized pages also arose 
when we were requesting a PDP on ensuring the 
rights of registrants who accidentally let their 
domain expire. It was common for the registrar to 
monetize the page at expiration or soon after, 
allowing them to make some extra money, and also 
gauge whether the domain was "valuable" or not. 
If it was valuable, they could take  over the 
registration (virtually all registration 
agreements let them do that) and then use it 
themselves or auction it off. We ultimately 
decided to not object to the practice, since 
doing so would impact the registrars revenue 
stream and would make it much more difficult to 
achieve the real aims of the PDP. This proved to 
be a correct analysis. We did ensure that the 
monetized page clearly said it was an expired 
domain and told the registrant how to get it 
back. And made sure the price did not go up 
immediately due to what was learned during monetization.

Interestingly we also in a few cases probably 
increased the monetization because it was the 
practice in some cases to NOT interrupt the 
domain and monetize it. This allowed the domain 
to work as if it was still owned by the original 
registrant until it was too late to renew the 
registration (generally 30 days) and then the 
registrar could take it over without any way for 
the registrant to get it back at a reasonable price.

This is a discussion that we could have, but I 
think it rather unlikely that ICANN would stop 
the practice, as it directly goes to how the 
domain is being used and its content. The only 
real issue within ICANN's current remit is that 
in many cases, a parked domain is one that is 
found by incorrectly typing a URL. A few years 
ago it was common to his monetized pages through 
a search engine, but these days the search sites 
seem pretty good at filtering them out - or at 
least that is my experience (largely with Google).

Alan

At 21/05/2017 03:11 AM, Kan Kaili wrote:

>Hi again,
>
>This article may have nothing to do with 
>Google.  Sorry for that ...  (although Google 
>did provide the platform for these activities)
>
>However, it also tells how to make money at the 
>end-users' expense quite a few years ago.  Over 
>time, according to some research, this has 
>already grown into an industry by itself.
>
>This is one of the reasons why the At-Large 
>community needs to look into domain parking.
>
>Kaili
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:ocl at gih.com>Olivier MJ CrÃ©pin-Leblond
>To: <mailto:alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2017 2:50 PM
>Subject: Re: [ALAC] Fw: Interesting article about parked domains
>
>Dear Kaili,
>
>that article dates from 2010. Google has since retired Adsense for domains.
>
><https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/2456470?visit_id=1-636309457565105321-703054909&ctx=as2&rd=1>https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/2456470?visit_id=1-636309457565105321-703054909&ctx=as2&rd=1
>
>Kindest regards,
>
>Olivier
>
>ps. the author is the owner of GroovyPost which has nothing to do with Google.
>
>On 21/05/2017 08:22, Kan Kaili wrote:
>>Hi,
>>
>>Thanks a lot for sharing.  Just read the 
>>article titled "Make Easy Money from Your 
>>Parked Domains with Google AdSense for Domains".
>>
>>
>><https://www.groovypost.com/howto/google/google-adsense-for-domains-review-make-money-from-parked/>https://www.groovypost.com/howto/google/google-adsense-for-domains-review-make-money-from-parked/ 
>>
>>
>>This article by Google itself teaches you how 
>>to make money from parked domains, although at 
>>the expense of consumers and end-users.
>>
>>I am used to think of Google as "DO NO 
>>EVIL".  Well, maybe not always ...   :(
>>
>>Kaili
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>
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>>
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>>
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>><https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)>https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)
>
>
>--
>
>Olivier MJ CrÃ©pin-Leblond, PhD
>
><http://www.gih.com/ocl.html>http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
>
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