Elliot Noss wrote: > > there are two big facts to note. first, the ICANN agreement is > subject to the contract between registrar and registrant, which was > quoted earlier in the thread. second, tucows is not the first (or the > second or the third or the fourth or........) to rely on contractual > terms as are being described. > > I think the point here is that it is one thing to talk about dropping > names so that other individual registrants can register and use them > and another to talk about dropping names so that a few insiders can > monopolize the process for their own very narrow benefit. the fact > that there is profit to be made is what led to the perversion of the > expired process in the first place. what you are seeing here is a > third-order reaction. nothing else. > > wishing for some idealized expiry process will not make it so. we > feel, I feel, a responsibility to help our customers live inside the > realities of the current market and to do so in a way that benefits > service providers, registrants and, yep, us. > > Regards > Elliot Noss
I for one applaud Tucows' belated entry into the expired name space. Maybe one day there will be an accepted, industry-wide model for handling re-allocation of expired domain names, but until then we will have to accept the current variety of competing solutions. I'm sure there will be flak from some resellers, but no matter what attempts are made to protect the rights of the registrant, an un-renewed name of any value is going to have a new owner, and very likely (even under the Tucows plan) it will be one of those "few insiders" you spoke of. I have watched the expired name market evolve over the past six years, and the competition is fierce. Currently EVERY expiring COM and NET domain name is being re-registered. That's EVERY name, not just those that fit some magic criteria indicating potential value. Most will be tested for traffic and then dropped again during the refund period. Some of those get re-registered and re-tested yet again. I believe, in theory, that some sort of auction mechanism is the only fair way to determine the next owner, and I prefer a method that makes it possible to know in advance where that auction will be held and how to enter it. (I say "in theory", because "in practice" the auction results nearly always frustrate me, but that's just because I'm too cheap to pay what it takes to win.) Today when a Tucows-registered name expires and is deleted, there is no way to tell where it will go. It may be picked up by one of the big three drop-catching services, or perhaps by a smaller public service, or maybe by a private registrar operating for just one client. As you say, other registrars have paved the way with models that reassign ownership of expired domain names without deleting at the registry level, either in partnership with someone like Snapnames or via some in-house mechanism. I believe the only two major registrars not currently doing this are Tucows and eNom, and eNom is very heavily involved in drop-catching "the old-fashioned way", with their multitude of registrar credentials/registry threads. As far as I'm concerned this is just a practical matter, more about "who" and "how" than about "what", and lots of good lawyers have managed to give their blessing. Chuck Hatcher _______________________________________________ domains-gen mailing list [email protected] http://discuss.tucows.com/mailman/listinfo/domains-gen
