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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."
What needs to change is getting your domain back if you accidentally let it expire.
Just days after I accidentally let one of my domains expire with godaddy, they told me it's in a probation period where it was protected and only I could re-register it if it was a mistake- the catch was that it'd cost $80, as opposed to the $10 it normally costs.
That price is arbitrary, as it's no skin off their backs to re-register it for standard cost. They're banking on drop-catching. Drop-catchers snatch domains faster than I've been able to, even using godaddy's service that watches and grabs a domain the minute it expires.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
It's an interesting study, although it seems you safely ignore drop catching. Things have to become available at some point, so it's what happens after the "drop catch" that's important. As the paper itself concludes:
"Drop-catching alone is not what has led to this problematic environment, but rather it is the abuse of the Add Grace Period in connection with drop-catching that appears to be the cause."
Gotta say domain tasting and parking spoil the internet for me. I've been thinking about setting up a website, and most of the names I checked were domain parked. I could easily live with the registration fee going up significantly if it meant that only people with a real use for domain bought it. The paper suggests that $100 (which isn't too much) is about the cutoff point where it starts to become financially stupid.
At a recent ICANN meeting, it was voted that ICANN will cease to refund the ICANN domain fee. The result of that will be that registrars won't refund it either, which in turn is expected to be a bullet to the heart of domain tasting.
ICANN's fee is not a lot - 20 cents (US) per year - but that is expected to be sufficient to make domain tasting unprofitable.
Article here: http://www.circleid.com/posts/81299_domain_tasting_ends/
All you need to do is nix the grace period. Simple. If you are not the original registered owner you have to pay full price to register it.
"This message was sent from an Apple
Make it a $100 deposit refundable in 6 months.
I disagree.
The whole problem was the domain speculators hardly ever had to pay for the domains they parked on in the first place with the Domain Tasting and other stupidity that the ICANN allowed (or planned?). Imagine being able to "taste" a house and only pay for it when people wanted to rent/buy it, how stupid is that?
Now to fix the problem THEY caused, you are suggesting that we PAY THEM MORE?
I bet if the domain tasting idiocy is really gone for good, this crap will drop to a manageable level in a few years.
It's really fishy that people are conveniently suggesting this, just after a dubious source of revenue stream is drying up for the registrars.
The Domain Registry of America never fails to send me a letter telling me to renew with them.
Even though I'm in Australia.