Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners are the problem

Re:Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners a... by jdietrich on Wednesday August 18, 2010 @04:28PM (#1615494)

Fine, except some of the big owners will not sell under almost any circumstances. There is a domain which I am prepared to pay five figures for, but the owner (one of the largest domain squatting firms) has a policy of not entering into correspondence about the sale of their domains. Frustratingly, the domain has virtually no commercial value to anyone but myself, but the owner has obviously decided that it is not worth their time.

Personally, I think that the current domain system is a nonsense. In a system with a finite number of short, pronounceable names, it seems manifestly unjust that most names are not being put to good use. I'm of the opinion that ICANN should set a blanket ban on squatting, and that failure to make good use of a domain should be automatic grounds for revocation under the ADRP.

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Re:Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners a... by omarchowdhury on Wednesday August 18, 2010 @04:32PM (#1615504)

But how would you define what constitutes 'good use' of a domain?

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Re:Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners a... by jdietrich on Wednesday August 18, 2010 @05:22PM (#1615648)

Something more substantial than simply displaying automatically-generated sponsored links.

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Re:Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners a... by colonelxc on Wednesday August 18, 2010 @09:32PM (#1616210)

But why does a domain need to host a webpage? I get that we mostly want snazzy domains for webapps these days, but if I grab a domain, point it towards a server that only serves SSH externally, what's wrong with that (Actually, I am considering doing just that for a domain I have been eying).

Defining 'substantial' is difficult, especially if we start pulling lawyers out to sue for the lost of virtual 'real estate.'

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Re:Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners a... by terrellm on Wednesday August 18, 2010 @06:02PM (#1615762)

Sorry to hear about wanting a name that a seller refuses to sell. I'm in a similar situation with a neighbor who has several acres that adjoin my ranch. I've offered way above market value for the land that doesn't even have access to a public road, but he still won't sell. It's definitely frustrating.

Defining "legitimate use" is such a slippery slope. With automatic content generation becoming so advanced today, it's become increasingly difficult for both search engines and humans to tell spam from legitimate content. It's even worse when some of the spam and scraping is more useful that someone's 5 year old blog with pictures of their pets.

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Re:Domains are inefficiently priced -- small domain owners a... by nerfhammer on Wednesday August 18, 2010 @05:39PM (#1615699)

Domains with significant type-in traffic should be very easy for the owner to price. Assuming the domain owner is rational.

Refusing to negotiate may also just be a hardball negotiating tactic. For instance reflex.com says "Our domains are not for sale.... and here's our contact info we're leaving here just to be friendly."

Immensely frustrating though

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