There is a loose analogy between Domain parking and land speculation (though it's not perfect -- you can make more domains, but you can't make more land).

Another approach you can try instead of a formal complaint department is to apply a universal "use it or lose it" tax to the asset at risk of speculation, as economist Ramin Shokrizade famously did in EVE Online to oust speculators and solve problems with recessions:

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130405/189...

What's hilarious is that in doing so, he unwittingly rederived Henry George's Land Value Tax from first principles.

Applying a properly sized tax that disincentives holding assets for speculation can actually reduce the price overall, because speculators stop jacking the price up knowing they can HODL forever.

The book Radical Markets proposes the following tax (to replace most other taxes), quote:

Every citizen and especially corporation would self-assess the value of assets they possess, pay a roughly 7% tax on these values and be required to sell the assets to anyone willing to purchase them at this self-assessed price.

This is a horrible proposal. Do I have to put a price on my family's home? And if I price it just right, be forced to sell to some speculator who wants it just because he has more money than I do?

Another way to think about it is, that you adjust the price continuously. If a speculator offers you money, you are in the position to take the offer or raise your own valuation and pay the increased tax. At some point a sensible person would be like: screw this, I am moving out of the city because the offers are so high, resulting in very high taxes, which is the intended effect.

Or wealthy people buy up a ton of land and get the law changed.

Or not, because the law would force them to pay taxes on that ton of land, but maybe something like a $200,000 personal exemption would help.

Which is essentially what the current reality is, since such a law does not exist.

Maybe can work for some types of assets one doesn't use, like parked domains

In your example, you could also say "I have to put a price on our cat, and...?" Or your glasses, or your jeans and underpants. But the proposal probably didn't have such things in mind

Basically, their answer is yes.

First, under this system, long-term speculation is not really viable, due to the high tax. So the buyer must have some reason for paying higher than the price you set, which you don't see, i.e. you under-utilize the asset. Google/Facebook ads work this way - every slot is always up for auction. Also similar dynamics in partnership agreement's "shotgun clauses", etc.

Second, you can always factor in your sentimentality into your price, then the buyer will buy your neighbor's house instead. But you have to pay for it in the form of a higher tax. This is like a penalty for obstructing economic efficiency.

Third, this system pretty much does away with the strict idea of private property, into what they call "partial common ownership". It's basically a way to have shared ownership (as in communism) without the central planning, i.e. in a way that might actually work. (In fact, it quite reduces the role of government.)

I'm not advocating for this system, but I think it's fun to think about.

A bit on the pedantic side, but you can make more land; there are dozens of artificial islands around the world, some of which have resulted from the need for more land.

The costs, of course, as well as other considerations (legal...) are of a different scale.

Land in this context is more of a mathematical concept: yes, you can make more land, but the surface of the oblate spheroid that we call "Earth" has a finite surface area, and it's that finite supply that gives land its population-proportional value.

Even if we're willing to stretch into a third dimension, that oblate spheroid has a finite volume, and the overwhelmingly vast majority of it is inaccessible to meaningful possession/occupation; you can only dig so far down or build so far up.

Two responses to this: Georgists classify “land” as both territory and all natural resources (really nature itself) so the “new land” the Netherlands makes is classified as an improvement to the pre-existing sea bed.

You might reasonably say this isn’t what most people mean by “land” to which the reply is, the amount of “new land” you can make in this manner is pretty limited and usually the reserve of states or state owned enterprises.

Comparatively, nothing stops you from tripling the number of domains overnight.

TIL about Georgists, thanks.

Regarding whether it's "pretty limited", yes and no, imo:

Yes, compared to, say, the size of a continent, the amount of new land is tiny.

However, new land is usually made in highly sought-after (high-density, high-value etc) areas [citation needed]. So it would make better sense to compare the surface of the new land to the surface of the adjacent area.

For example, the polders in the Netherlands significantly augment the country's surface. The artificial islands in Tokyo Bay significantly add to the real estate of the harbour. The artificial islands in Dubai and Bahrain significantly add to the coastline.

I think that this is enough for OP's analogy between domain parking and land speculation to reasonably stand.

Sounds exactly like the empty homes tax in Vancouver!

The LVT is this but... more. The idea of a full land-value tax is based on a principle related to universal basic income. In both cases, the argument is that by applying the tax/income to every stakeholder indiscriminately, it removes bureaucratic complexity and motivation to "cheat" the system.

Since the effect is the same no matter what, we don't need a huge statute listing what does and does not apply as X.

> The idea of a full land-value tax is based on a principle related to universal basic income.

And tangentially: seeking a minimal state that exists solely to collect LVT (and possibly Pigovian and severance taxes) and distribute the proceeds evenly as UBI is the basic idea around geolibertarianism.

This is absolutely it - domain parking exists only because ICANN allows it.

People do that with physical land too... Isn't that much worst? What about sitting on gold, or Bitcoins?

There's an entire economic school of thought dedicated to railing against the specific problem of sitting on physical land just to keep it out of use until someone else pays you a higher price:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

It's fun to note the game Monopoly was designed as a teaching exercise for Georgism (it's meant to be awful; it's designed to show the unfairness of existing landholder/landlord structures), though the pack in rules (for somewhat obvious reasons) no longer include the pro-Georgism text and counter-rules that illustrate that the game is far more boring, but quicker and more fair under a Georgism-like model.

Indeed! I assume you’re referring to “The Landlord’s game” by Elizabeth Maggie? (The earlier incarnation)

Quite. The original rules document is in the public domain now and is a fascinating read of turn of last century economic thought that is still relevant today (as this larger discussion shows). Maybe someone could do a quick interesting reskin for "The Domainparker's Game".

Yes, it is bad with physical land which is why governments introduce land taxes to encourage value creating activities on land.

Gold and bitcoins are not problematic as holding on to them does not inhibit value creation.

Yes, but they do it to the exact opposite effect. Squatting property actually puts it to its intended use (living, agriculture etc.) Domain squatting is meant to prevent the domain from its intended use (access to a meaningful service). For gold and bitcoins, there is (or at least there should be) taxation to make sure you're not sitting on them.

Around the world there are actually laws regulating physical squatting [1, 2], because it seen as a socially positive outcome (compared to leaving houses/land disused). And there are also often provisions that allow you to prevent squatting [3], but you have to give something back (e.g. dirt-cheap short-term rentals).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_in_the_Netherlands, [2] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-associations-squatter..., [3] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikraak

Worth adding, at least in some countries, the laws allow physical squatters to legally take over ownership of land or property, if they can document they lived there / put it to productive use over many years (IIRC 20, in Poland), while the original owner didn't use it in any way.

EDIT:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucaption

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession

I don't think the parallel to be drawn here is against physically squatting in property the occupants do not own, but with people who buy property and use it as a value sink; as seen with a sizable portion of non-domestically owned property investment in London, Vancouver and other high value regions.

Such property can be seen to sit unused by anyone, but it's lack of availability (when it could otherwise be used) contributes to the scarcity of property in that district, and thus inflation of property prices in that area (be it naturally occurring or otherwise)

Land, Gold and Bitcoins are all commodities.

I don't have to care which specific instance of them I have (mostly, land is where it gets funny but that's more secondary effects like transport hubs, taxation, regulations etc at which point it's not "land" it's a location I'm after).

A domain name? It's a unique registration on a global index. It's value is in that uniqueness.

If land isn't unique, can I have a piece of land exactly like yours (in the same location)?

Tell that to the farming industry.

(Yeah, I know it’s not central to your point.)

I stole something from someone, but I benefitted so all is good!

I fail to understand this mentality. It's extremely common, of course, but I just can't wrap my head around it.

I'm interpreting (disregarding possible narrator bias) OP as that the person who lost the claim bought a domain unrelated to their business other than it being the company name of a competitor, and redirected all traffic to their own company.

Are you interpreting it the same way as me? If so, yes the domain was indeed taken from the person squatting it (but actually worse than squatting, since it took you somewhere else than where you as a consumer wanted to go). And that's something I'm entirely ok with, and in fact applaud.

"I stole something from someone, but I benefitted so all is good!" Could you elaborate please? Who do you mean stole anything from anyone?

The comment literally devoted a paragraph to that.

He does not explain the link the parent comment, no. But one could guess that he thinks of domains as private ownership and something you can steal. However, that view on domain is very problematic, as you have to renew it which indicates a right to use under specific terms, even for .com domains. The terms are just different for different domains, which is not too controversial.

Private ownership becomes more and more challenged these years. The original comment is set in Denmark. I am also Danish, and I can verify that we have another view on ownership than what you experience in the US.

"But one could guess that he thinks of domains as private ownership and something you can steal." - I think you're right, also about the view on ownership.

I'd argue that, since there's a limited amount of useful - domain-wise - words in the English dictionary, the number of available domains are bound to run dry faster if domainparking is not discouraged somehow. One might argue that the new TLD's are merely a 'bandaid' on a systemic problem with domains not being released properly, when no longer in proper use.

Yet, the poster did devote a paragraph to the topic. That different people draw the line of theft at different places is immaterial to the actual discussion existing in the comment.

He did not. It might be subtle, but the paragraph your refer to explains his view on the people in question, not the link between domains and stealing.

Someone else had the right to use a domain. They had paid for that right. You appealed to some people with guns, they decided to use the threat of force to revoke that right, and you benefitted.

What exactly is difficult to understand here?

Owning a domain-name is not some fundamental right or need. It's an artificial thing, whose operation is, in many countries, paid for by taxpayer money. The entire history of the Internet, and related inventions, are also filled with a lot of taxpayer funding(CERN, DARPA). IMO it's a flaw in the system that allowed domainparking in the first-place, there should have been a built-in way to mitigate that issue.

It would be a lot different if this was say; a twitter-handle or an ICQ-number (like in the old days where the simple ICQ numbers could be sold for a lot of money), but the Internet is so close to being a public utility that it should be operated as such, and not like a town in the Wild West....

>>Owning a domain-name is not some fundamental right or need. It's an artificial thing, whose operation is, in many countries, paid for by taxpayer money.

Owning real estate isn't a fundamental right or need either. That doesn't mean property rights have no relevance or value simply because of their "artificiality". Property rights exist whether it is for houses or for domain names.

>>The entire history of the Internet, and related inventions, are also filled with a lot of taxpayer funding(CERN, DARPA). IMO it's a flaw in the system that allowed domainparking in the first-place, there should have been a built-in way to mitigate that issue.

DARPA was no longer involved with the internet/ARPANET by 1984. CERN had nothing to do with the Web besides the fact that one of its physicists made a GUI and a markup language. They both have nothing to do with DNS, URLs/URI, or IANA/ICANN. SRI/INTERNIC, a private research institute, was responsible for it's creation. As far as domainparking is concerned, the built-in limitation used to be the number of IPv4 addresses. But with IPv6, the point is made moot.

> That doesn't mean property rights have no relevance or value simply because of their "artificiality".

It kinda does, actually. Without the existence of a state enforcing said property rights by threat of monopolized violence, any sort of land "ownership" beyond physical occupation is meaningless; there would be nothing stopping someone else from inhabiting "your" land unless you're able and willing to infringe on their rights to life and liberty.

Given that dependence on the state, land "ownership" is naturally subject to its whims.

>>Without the existence of a state enforcing said property rights by threat of monopolized, any sorry of land "ownership" beyond physical occupation is meaningless.

Then by your standards, a state would be just as artificial. Without the existence of a sufficient number of individuals capable and invested in engaging in violence for the defense of property, any concept of a state would be just that: a concept. An imaginary plaything. Enforcement of property rights can only come from people, not papers or buildings. And since a people precede a state, so to do their rights to own property.

>> There would be nothing stopping someone else from inhabiting "your" land unless your able and willing to infringe on their rights to life and liberty.

You're contradicting yourself. If one owns land, no one else has any right to life or liberty with respect to it. In other words, your rights end where mine begin.

Proof of this is the fact that (contiguous) United States isn't bordered by Mexican Gulf, the Pacific Ocean, and the 49th parallel because nature or belief willed it. It's there because people physically occupied territory long enough to obtain legitimacy, people purchased other colonial territories (i.e Alaska, Colonial Louisiana), or people negotiated treaties that says they owns certain areas. None of this is any different from how ordinary people obtain or historically obtained ownership despite your claim of insufficiency in their case. If that's so, what makes it be inherently different for a so-called state?

Nothing stops Canada from invading a la 1812 except for pieces of paper that merely claim it "can't". Canada chooses not to, not because it lacks a dedicated army with sufficient capability to capture some land, but because because it obtains benefits from an alliance and because provoking a potential retaliatory occupation by it's nearest neighbor isn't currently in the country's personal interest as a result of what violence would likely ensue.

Ownership is not a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state. It's not even granted. Individuals have those rights to begin with. It is the exercise of those rights to pursue either agreement or defense that demonstrate ownership.

> Then by your standards, a state would be just as artificial.

Indeed it would be.

> And since a people precede a state, so to do their rights to own property.

Except that the concept of private land ownership without a state has yet to be demonstrated, specifically because said private land ownership is wholly a function of the state.

> If one owns land, no one else has any right to life or liberty with respect to it.

Says who? There's a reason why the rights to "life, liberty, and property" are in that order: property is meaningless without life and liberty, and liberty is in turn meaningless without life.

And further, because the state - like the notion of land ownership - is artificial, your ownership of land is at the mercy of those fellow members of society and their collective conjuring of the state - and its powers to enforce ownership over imaginary concepts like parcel boundaries - into existence. That said society happens to currently tolerate your exclusive claim on some parcel of land (without receiving anything even remotely resembling reciprocal compensation for the incurred opportunity costs) is a privilege, and one which can be revoked when it conflicts with the rights to life and liberty.

> Ownership is not a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state.

With respect to land, unless you live in Bir Tawil or have decided to invest in deep sea and deep space real estate, said ownership quite literally is a power that comes with the prima facie existence of a state. That the state itself exists (ostensibly) as an action of the people it governs doesn't change the fact that your "ownership" of land is more of a lease, and that a superior landlord - the state - continues to exist.

If you disagree, then you're encouraged to brush up on your understanding of the difference between "fee simple" and "allodial" titles - hint: if you own land in a common law jurisdiction like the US, your land is almost certainly under the former kind of title, not the latter.

> You appealed to some people with guns

Actually, the whole set of up all laws derives from people with guns. Like, if there was no government, then we probably wouldn't have the internet, so domain names couldn't be taken away.

Like, are you saying that rights of property are more fundemental than government?

That seems like an odd argument, given that rights to property would seem to derive from government, at least in the modern world.

This is a deep well of theory of society, and reasonable people disagree based on how they answer that question.

Some do believe property rights exist independent of government (and existed before the concept of governments, as webs of individual agreements between people with no over-arching enforcement authority, i.e. "This belongs to me because if you try to take it from me I will kill you. That belongs to you because you would do the same to me. We have an understanding between us, but is an understanding between two people a 'government'?").

> ... rights to property would seem to derive from government...

Yeah, this is the fundamental disconnect I have with (apparently) most people. Rights come from God. The idea that they come from governments is, in the words of a famous person, "not even wrong".

Anyway, this was an informative exchange. I learned that I'm in a minority, at least in this corner of the world :)

Problem with this argument is: What god and under what rule book?

If my rule book says women are second class citizens, then is that just it? They have no rights? Or if my rule book says homosexuality is bad, but another interpretation of the rule book says its fine, then who's rule book is correct? Who settles that argument? Government.

Only other answer is a holy war and the survivors rule book is supreme. Until the next holy war.

My God says you have no rights except those derived from governments. Now what do we do?

"Rights" are more properly understood as "a social agreement among people of a culture". If a culture doesn't value something, no rights for it exist. When cultures intersect, "rights" get real muddy real fast.

This is silly. God gave no right to domain names. If the internet was a libertarian utopia, I would just run my own DNS server and could "own" google.com, apple.com, etc. Except no one would use my DNS server.

Instead governments and NGOs manage limited "intellectual property" rights on DNS servers everyone agrees to connect to so the internet can actually be useful and not a free-for-all. The same applies to copyrights and patents. There is no natural right to exclusive ownership of an idea or written text. These things are "naturally" meant to be copied. Intellectual property "rights" are entirely constructed by government decree.

I don't believe in Imaginary Property (aka Intellectual Property). It's not what I was talking about.

Someone bought the right to use a specific domain from a specific domain name provider. It was a private transaction between two parties, freely agreed to between them.

In the specific case you're railing against, arbitration by the complaints board is just a contractual provision in that private transaction.

There is no "theft". Your whole understanding of this issue is absurd.

>Yeah, this is the fundamental disconnect I have with (apparently) most people. Rights come from God.

Please objectively prove the existence of the specific God from which you assert that all rights derive.

This [1] is by far the best answer I have ever seen to that question / request. Since it is quite long, I will attempt to summarize: that is what I start from. I am more certain of the existence of God than I am of my own existence - the first one is an axiom, the second one is a theorem ("I think, therefore I am").

"The answer is that a reasonable person is a person who believes what Augustine believes and who, like Augustine, can only hear assertions contrary to that belief as absurd."

I genuinely see opinions different from mine as absurd. As in, "you cannot possibly believe this, which means you are lying" absurd. It's why I generally dismiss the common saying "do not attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence". NOBODY is that incompetent, and therefore whatever I disagree with is in fact malice.

I realize it's a minority opinion. I am fine with that situation, though I continue to be surprised when people disagree :)

[1] https://www.firstthings.com/article/1996/02/001-why-we-cant-...

The obvious disconnect is whether they actually did have the right to use this domain. Where I'm from you may not mislead with advertising, which includes buying Google ads with your competitors' names. I place this domain name issue squarely in the same bucket.

I do see how someone with, say, more adversarial US background may have a different opinion.

just to clarify;

Our product: A was a direct competitor to the other product: B. We tried to purchase domain: C - without any luck, we could not get in touch with the owner since he did not reply to the publicly listed email address.

B's owner(our competitor) purchased domain C from it's owner; B was better at location contact-information I guess.

So suddenly domain C contained logo, image, and redirect to product B; and that was when we complained. We had no intention(or right) to complain when domain C was still in use by its original owner.

> They had paid for that right.

The terms of that domain ownership included the possibility of losing it in the manner described. The buyer knew those terms and implicitly agreed to them at time of purchase. It's all perfectly libertarian.

Or do you think you know better, and want to limit what kinds of contracts/ownership terms people can enter? And enforce those limits with men with guns?

"Stealing" and "ownership" are defined by the set of rules (usually national laws) surrounding a thing. In this case, the GP didn't steal anything, they entered a dispute and acquired ownership in accordance with the rules surrounding domain allocation in Denmark.