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ICANN Takes a Step Toward Ending Domain Tasting
An anonymous reader writes "For years, domain squatters have exploited an ICANN loophole: whenever a domain name is registered, ICANN collects a 20-cent fee from the registrar. To allow for non-paying customers, the registrar can return it five days later for a full refund. The loophole has let unscrupulous registrars constantly create and refund domain-squatting websites, selling 'what you need when you need it' advertising. The problem has grown so bad that every month the world's top three domain squatters, all located in Miami with the same address and represented by the same lawyer, recycle 11 million domain names. After years of complaints, ICANN has finally begun moving on the problem. On April 17 ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization voted to make the ICANN 20-cent fee non-refundable. If the ICANN board ratifies this position in June, those top three squatters will be getting a monthly bill for $2.2M. News of the ICANN changes has been applauded by legitimate Internet businesses, tired of having to choose nonsense names because all the good ones have been squatted. ICANN has published an analysis of the economics of ending domain squatting."
No the registrars themselves have to pay ~ $6 a year/per name to the registry ( verisign ) for the domains they themselves purchase. So yes, it does cost anyone other than verisign at least 6 million to register 1 Million names.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Spam and internet crimes are just that, crimes. Trying to hold ICANN accountable for the registrars, who have to police who they sell to is ridiculous.
I bet they use Dell servers to send out the spam, should we require Dell to ensure that all sales are for legit reasons? What about Western Digital and Best Buy that sell all those hard drives to pedos?
It's a nice thought, but probably impossible, and definately illogical.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
Let's see: 365 days a year, and they can only hold them for 5 days, so that's 73 times a year to cycle a name (give or take). Let's just round it to 75 because I'm cool like that.
So .20 a cycle at 75 cycles per year means it'll cost a whole $15.00 per year to taste a domain name.
Sure, with 11 million domains to cycle through that makes for a pretty big number. But, Considering that you can sell useful domains for anywhere from $20 to $20,000... They can still keep cycling all they want. Just the less popular names will finally be released in a year when they can't turn a profit.
And if they sell better names for a little more, it can still offset the cheap names so don't expect this to even see a dent for at least one year, but probably closer to three.