Re: [wg-c] straw poll -- reminder

[John Charles Broomfield <jbroom@manta.outremer.com>]

Hi Elisabeth,
(...)
> But there is another problem with wild registration
> of Internet names in .com/.org/.net (or in any other gTLD).
> 
> All geographical and historical names (English and French alike,
> probably other languages) are registered, then all English
> dictionnary names are registrered. Automated systems
> associated with dictionnaries on line (or on CDROM) make 
> Internet domain name registration for some middlemen-cybersquatters
> just yet another fast speculation activity.
> Last June some newspapers reported about a company who succeded
> to register ALL not-yet-taken 4 letters. In San Jose the pannel
> of people discussing about Internet evolution for the next
> year (Vint Cerf and others), concluded that in 2000
> many if not all of two-words combinations in English will
> be registered as domain names.
(...)
> Is it too pessimistic ?

No, it's not too pessimistic. It's actually the result of speculation based
on the fact that up to now getting a com/net/org domain was free for the
first 3 months (*). This is why there are many sectors that advocate for
prepayment.
You don't have that problem in ".fr" because the registrar is responsible
for payment, so he doesn't just go ahead and registrar whatever a client
throws at him.
Presuming pre-payment is enforced, the speculation should die down quite a
lot. NSI had up to now been saying that they had a 30% non-collection rate.
My guess is that this spectacular shoot over the last few months in amount
of registrations has also a spectacular shoot in the non-collection rate as
more and more people have seen names go for cash...
If people want to speculate, then they'll have to pay...
I don't see that any worse than having people pay the trademark office of
their respective countries for the registrations that they do there...

Yours, John Broomfield.