ICANN Sued Over Wait List

Greedo writes "According to their press release, "Pool.com, one of the Internet's hottest new ventures (their words, not mine), has launched a lawsuit challenging the right of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to proceed with a monopolistic new Wait-Listing Service (Google cache) this fall." You can read Pool.com's Statement of Claim, if you like."

Comments

broken link

[xilmaril]

the statement of claim is actually here

Basically

[Otter]

If I understand this correctly (which may well not be the case) -- Pool.com specializes in grabbing expired domain names. ICANN is proposing a method in which reservations could be placed for names before they expire, instead of a first-come, first-served system upon expiration.

Waving around the word "monopolistic" seems a bit silly here -- like with broadcast spectrum allocation, this is a case where you need a central authority. Whether or not you like ICANN and whether or not a waiting-list is better than a free-for-all, there doesn't seem to be anything at issue here except Pool.com's business model.

(Incidentally, pool.com is the sort of sweet domain that got swept up in the '90's and become available again now. Apparently their system works.)

Dips on Microsoft.com

[infonography]

So does this mean when it's up for renewal next, i could get it? I been eyeing mit.edu for quite a while now.

Call me a counter-counter-culturist, but

[Dachannien]

I am of the firm belief that a significant amount of total shit on the Internet would not have appeared had domain name registration not been "privatized". Pool.com should be counting their blessings that they can even broker in domain names in the first place.

I'm tired of domain name issues

[fm6]

It's a little late in the game for me to raise this issue, but I think this all goes to show how stupid it was to insist on "free market" domain registration. When Network Solutions had a monopoly on com, net, and org registrations, their high fees meant that only serious web site operators could buy TLDs. Yeah, these same fees put TLDs out of the reach of those with limited means. But what's wrong with second-level domains? Web presence providers gave them away for free, and it allowed more people to have vanity domain names.

It was, of course, unfair for Network Solutions to reap such large profits from a service that cost them little to opeate. But it would have made more sense to divert this money into Internet operations or research. Cutting the fees has just enabled wholesale domain squatting and the strange business of grabbing popular names for porn sites.

What the heck. I think it's time to stop trying to "fix" the domain system and think of it as a set of arbitrary addresses. For actually finding the web site you want, we need some kind of keyword system and/or a central registry of people and organization that own domain names.