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[ga] Secondary market - criteria?
Rick Wesson has asked this GA for criteria any proposal for handling
the deleted domains market has to fulfill. Even though many who are
writing here (with the notable exception of Bret Fausett) seem to be
blantantly opposed to the WLS proposal, this topic is generally
worth discussing.
Verisign wants input from the registrars constituency on the WLS
proposal by January 18 (that's next Friday). This indicates that we
don't have a whole lot of time. For this reason, I'd strongly
suggest that we don't bother debating whether or not we need a
working group, what mailing list should be used by that working
group, who should chair it, and whether the Pope needs a
representative. Eric's anonymous "friend" is quite right that it's
that kind of stuff which has ruined the GA in the past.
Instead, let's try to understand the problems on this very list.
In fact, I think that the requirements posted by Bret in
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc09/msg00194.html> are mostly a
good starting point for such a debate.
But one of them is particularly interesting: "the current registrant
should make his or her decision to renew blind to the value placed
on that domain name by prospective registrants".
It's interesting because it's just the opposite of the suggestion
posted by Elliot Noss. In fact, what Bret suggests is deliberately
adding more inefficiency to the domain market by trying to make sure
that current registrants of a domain will release it to the pool of
available domains as soon as it's not used. The philosophy seems to
be: You lease a domain at USD such-and-such year, use it, and
return it to the pool for the next one to use it.
The problem with this approach is, of course, that domains are worth
more to some than they are to others, and that they cost still less.
Now, as Noss describes in his message, when you combine this with
traditional domain pricing, you end up with a price gap which can be
exploited by speculators - or by those registrars who offer
back-snapping services for domains, or by the registry.
HOW precisely the money is really distributed is irrelevant from the
point of view of those domain name owners who actually want to use
their domain (and don't just want to trade them).
From this point of view, RRS (afternic), WLS, and the current system
are all equally bad, and prize-driving. In fact, figure A of the
Afternic proposal gives some nice insight in what happens: RRS
maximizes registrar earning (thus, it's really just a
make-some-registrars-quite-rich scheme), the WLS scheme splits most
of the money from the gap between the registry and speculators
(while making some ways to speculate considerably more expensive at
the same time), and the current system has the interesting feature
that the back-order services work best and cheapest when there is
few competition, but inevitably become expensive as soon as more
competition arrives, and the chance that any particular player gets
a domain decreases. But still, the current approach will shove a
lot of money into a lot of registrars' pockets. It's just not good
for the non-speculating registrants...
Now, what happens when you follow Elliot Noss and drop Bret's
postulate that current registrants shouldn't know about the value of
their domain? First of all, there would be an incentive to keep all
domains but the most worthless ones - the latter ones being returned
to the pool of available domains. This may generate predictable
revenue for registrars and the registry. It may also put those out
of business (or at least make business more difficult for them) who
are currently hunting for deleted domains. It would, finally, make
life more difficult (though not impossible) for speculators.
It would, of course, also put some of the money into registrants'
pockets which ends up with registrars, the registry, or professional
speculators according to the other proposals, and with the current
state of affairs, where selling a domain name does not seem to be
something mainstream registrants do, and where many registrants just
may not know that their domain has a value.
Quite frankly, the more I think about this, the more I like the idea
of letting registrants know about their domains' value, and the more
I dislike ideas like the ones from RRS, or like Bret's postulate,
which both just make sure that the money does _not_ end up with
average registrants.
Now, what about WLS? It would, ultimately, be put out of business,
but it would, on the other hand, probably not do much damage to the
development of a healthy market.
--
Thomas Roessler http://log.does-not-exist.org/
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