[NA-Discuss] The societal harm of domaining, episode 413

Jonathan Zuck JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org
Thu Feb 11 16:19:02 UTC 2021


Since domain names are not actually “owned” but require constant renewal, isn’t the situation more akin to charging a premium to someone taking over a lease? All analogies are flawed, almost by definition, but this is the closest I’ve been able to come to one that fits.

From: NA-Discuss <na-discuss-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org> on behalf of David Mackey <mackey361 at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, February 11, 2021 at 7:54 AM
To: Nat Cohen <ncohen at telepathy.com>
Cc: NARALO Discussion List <na-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] The societal harm of domaining, episode 413

Hi Nat,

Thanks for the information too.

I'm not sure your comparison between tickets and domain names satisfied my curiosity.

You state ... "In contrast, the pool of domain names are nearly infinite in number, the useful life is indefinite"

Yes, I agree that the pool of domain names is nearly infinite, however, the pool of human relevant domain names is smaller than infinite. The value of a domain name is connected to the relevancy it has to humans (aka Brand Marketing). The primary/secondary domain name market falls within human relevant domain names. The domain name primary/secondary market is not infinite.

The other point I'm not sure about relates to the "limited useful life" of a domain name vs. a ticket. Tickets are used to capture value for a real life event. Domain names are human constructs used to connect humans with computers. The nature of a ticket is different from the nature of a domain name with respect to the determination of "useful life". The "useful life"  of a domain name is governed by policy.  Policies can be changed.

Cheers!
David



On Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 9:20 AM Nat Cohen <ncohen at telepathy.com<mailto:ncohen at telepathy.com>> wrote:
Hi David,

If I may chime in-

A scalper buys a ticket from a pool of tickets that are limited in number and that have a limited useful life - usually a couple of hours on a particular date.  The ticket provides access to, and a source of funding to support the production of, exclusive content provided by a presenter who charges a fee to experience that content - be it a concert, a performance, a race, a fight, etc.

In contrast, the pool of domain names are nearly infinite in number, the useful life is indefinite, and the domain names are not sold by the owners of exclusive content as the exclusive means to access that content.  Domain names are an alias for an online IP address.  They are sold by a registry provider whose job it is to match certain contact information and name servers with a particular domain name.  The character of domain names is much more similar to physical real estate which can be bought and sold many times in the resale market.  The role of a domain name registry is akin to that of a land registry not a concert promoter.

In the past couple of weeks, I acquired lentes.com<http://lentes.com> (Spanish for glasses) from the registrant who lives in Mexico and lentesdesol.com<http://lentesdesol.com> (sunglasses in Spanish) from the registrant who lives in Colombia.  They both no longer had a need for those domain names and valued the cash that I offered them more highly than continuing to own those domain names.  I hope to sell these domain names for more than I paid for them.  In what way is this free functioning of the secondary market a problem or akin to ticket scalping?

Regards,

Nat



On Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 8:10 AM David Mackey <mackey361 at gmail.com<mailto:mackey361 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Evan,

Thanks for the information.

Just curious, do you think the Ticketmaster/Scalper relationship (primary/secondary market) for tickets is analogous to domain name markets?

Cheers,
David

On Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 12:36 AM Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org<mailto:evan at telly.org>> wrote:

More grist for the mill -- why and how domaining hurts small business and entrepreneurs, and how it extracts value rather than adds: http://www.circleid.com/posts/20210210-now-we-know-why-its-hard-to-get-a-com/

All you domain speculators who fancy yourselves marketing experts and are camped out in NARALO because, I would guess,  no other constituency will have you .... your turn. I see that some have already posted lame rebuttals on CircleID, read them and have a chuckle. (It's still noteworthy that nobody I know in ICANN-land defends the practice except those with direct financial interest in it.)

(And thank you to the kind NARALO member who found the article, figuring that I might have more fun posting it here than they would. You're probably right.)

Disclosure: I have never accepted money from AT&T or any other telco or ISP for that matter. My shitty mobile provider won't even give me a decent discount, but the others are no better. I did win a T-shirt a few years ago from SiriusXM, does that count?
Cheers,

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch / @el56

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