Drop-Catching Domains Is Big Business

WebsiteMag brings us news from the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) about a recent study of drop catching —'a process whereby a domain that has expired is released into the pool of available names and is instantly re-registered by another party.' The eleven day study showed that 100% of '.com' and '.net' domain names were immediately registered after they had been released. CADNA has published the results with their own analysis. Quoting: "The results also show that 87% of Dot-COM drop-catchers use the domain names for pay-per-click (PPC) sites. They have no interest in these domain names other than leveraging them to post PPC ads and turn a profit. Interestingly, only 67% of Dot-ORG drop catchers use the domains they catch to post these sites — most likely because Dot-ORG names are harder to monetize due to the lack of type-in traffic and because they tend to be used for more legitimate purposes."

Comments

Use Fees for Property Rights

[Baldrson]

There should be no taxes -- only use fees for net property rights (with an exemption for one's subsistence assets up to, say $500k).

If the use fee were the short term treasury rate (also known as the risk free interest rate in modern portfolio theory), then it would not distort the market. Indeed, it would terminate abuses of property rights such as we see with domain grabbing, spectrum hoarding and last but not least, Microsoft.

Better yet, instead of disbursing it via political processes so far removed from the people no one but professional parasites can influence it, take the use fees and evenly divide them throughout the population to give everyone a uniform incentive to uphold enforcement of property rights starting, of course, with the sovereignty of a nation whose state is so wisely crafted.