At 1/5/02 9:56 PM, Dave Warren wrote: >If they are hammering one name over and over, introduce a timeout penalty >(Starting at one second, getting incrementally longer) each time you receive >another query for that name. During this timeout, ALL registration attempts >from the registrar would be delayed. Let their entire business grind to a >halt for 30 or 60 seconds in the middle of the daily drop and I bet they'll >be a more friendly neighbour next time, without giving Verisign some huge >cash payoff, which is about the only other penalty you can use.
That would indeed solve the load problem. But I suspect registrars would sell the limited number of connections to the highest bidder (this is what many registrars did for SnapNames, after all, when the limiting factor was technological, not policy-based). And the end result would still be that the consequence of high demand is that in most cases, the person who got the name is someone who paid a premium over the cost of a less desirable domain. It's funny how all these schemes -- first come first served, rate limiting, auctions, SnapNames, or what have you -- seem to actually come down to "desirable domains are going to be sold to people who pay more, no matter what you do." So, to come full circle: If desirable domains are going to cost more anyway, perhaps it makes sense for that to actually be the official scheme and make sure the profits go to registrars engaging in vigorous competition in the open, instead of going to the registry monopoly or to companies like SnapNames (whose backroom dealings make me uncomfortable). -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
