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Huge growth expected for new extensions
There nothing like bad debt to force non-profits, like the ICANN, into dubious decisions which are, in the end, motivated almost entirely by greed, whatever the risks to “the rest” of the business model.
The ICANN has announced its plans to greatly expand the domain name extension market, way beyond .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .name and such, to include just about anything a registrar is ready to pay between 150k$ to 500k$ for.
So we might assist to a giant IT business like IBM, for instance, paying the ICANN to establish a new domain name extension labeled “.ibm” which could then be resold to anyone interested in paying the yearly registration fee, which would be likely left entirely to the discretion of the registrar.
Imagine an online web where almost anything of any significance has its own domain name extension — it could get very confusing, very fast. As soon as early 2009, actually since that’s when the ICANN plans to fast track the approval for such extensions. The astute domainer should therefore understand that the ICANN needs lots of new money, fast.
Name extensions like .london, .melbourne, .islands, .vehicles, .loveable, .unbelievable and just about anything out there are expected to pop up faster than we can count them, changing the online landscape forever.
The ICANN believes in “choice and opportunity” as the two main lines of thought behind their move but the idea of letting registrars expand the domain name extension pool ad infinitum also holds great risks of overly diluting the current domain name extension momentum.
Individuals won’t be allowed to establish new domain name extensions as only companies with very deep pockets and the resources to operate such a service will be fast tracked through the approval process. Under these conditions, it’s obvious that Network Solutions and GoDaddy, to name only those, will be well positioned to launch a slew of domain name extensions.
Forget the principle of fairness in the creation of these extensions. The ICANN has decided to unilaterally favor the rich registrars because this, for all useful purposes, is a huge money grab for the folks at ICANN who will surely vote themselves a nice salary increase to cover for the added workload of managing this new mess. If university students want to study a case where a non-profit corporation ditches coherence in favor of sheer greed, this is it.
From a legal standpoint, if you have a brand that you need to protect in the digital realm, expect to be financially fleeced out by the seemingly never-ending multiplication of domain name extensions, in the years to come. Keep in mind that the ICANN has no “overall” rule that’ll protect your brand within all domain name extensions since every single registrar may rule over their extension as they please. So unless you want to be sending nasty cease and desist letters all the time, paying your lawyer premium fees to do so, you’ll probably end up buying out your brand name in all of these extensions — in both cases, the ICANN has setup a system where almost everybody has to become paranoid about protecting their brand.
Examples abound. Think of Apple Computer. They have their “apple.just-about-anything” brand established worldwide but what happens when .london pops up. They’ll probably want to buy apple.london. And then, what if 250 more popular european cities pop up. Apple will almost certainly want to buy apple.paris, apple.lyon, apple.rome (or apple.roma, for the locals) and if certain cities don’t see their extension purchased by such industry heavyweights, will they turn their back on them? For instance, if Apple chooses not to buy apple.prague, will the people living in Prague see this as an offensive gesture?
This is just one example among countless others that’ll make domaining a new, uncharted world of utter confusion, frustration and exploding costs.
Some domainers might get their hands on interesting domain names, like gamers.london or visiting.london but overall, there’s no guarantee these new extensions will draw natural visitors. The mainline .com will likely remain “king of the hill” for many years to come -but- seeing the failure of the much hyped .biz might send a chill down the back of those registrars who feel they can push any extension down potential domain owners’ throats.
It’s already expected that some of these new domain name extensions will be more attractive —and expensive— than others but if the ICANN allows for a seemingly uncontrolled expansion of the extension pool, it’ll almost certainly backfire and the internet, as a relatively healthy entity, could be hardly hit.
Let’s hope for the best with this latest ICANN move but at the same time, let’s also (discreetly) brace for a bumpy ride.
Tags: icann, new domain name extensions, new extensions, registrars, domain names, domains, domainers, domaining, rich registrars, expensive extensions, greed, internet, naming system, root dns, new names approval
Revisiting the CIRA’s TBR lists
If you had a very good “.ca” domain name, chances are you’d never let it go but life being what it is, stuff happens and as such, very good domain names pop up here and there in the CIRA’s wildly popular TBR list, every Wednesday.
TBR means “to be released” so when you spot a domain name in that list, you’re more than welcome to watch it be returned to the “available” domains on Wednesday, from 3 PM up to around 9 PM.
The trouble is, you may not be the only one looking to get your hands on the best domains, namely the shortest, those why match generic terms and those with special contextual value. Those “superstar domains” are being heavily fought over so you’re chance of registering it “manually” when it becomes available is non-existent — unless you can query the name every 1/60th of a second for hours on end.
So how do you get those “soon to be available” domain names with significant street value? You bid on them, just like everybody else. Bare Metal offers an excellent TBR monitoring service which will work for you to get the domain names you want. You only pay if they get the name on your behalf so pretty much anybody can “play the TBR game”, with Bare Metal.
Of course, if Bare Metal scores your domain name and more than one potential registrant has requested it (at Bare Metal, specifically), then if goes into an auction that can quickly bump up the price for a domain name in the tens of thousands.
As such, CIRA has allowed for Canadian registrars to offer the names they “catch” through auctions and although this system makes sense for the richer domainers, it’s a total nonsense for the average Canadian attemting to buy a relatively good “.ca” domain name — this is becoming a real problem as most of the very good names are being concentrated in the same hands, creating huge portfolios of “parked” names.
So while the CIRA presents the TBR lists as a fair way for Canadians to grab domains which aren’t required anymore by their previous owners, the reality of the TBR is more a matter of money than fairness.
If you intend to win at the TBR monitoring game (and it can happen, from time to time), you better keep in mind that the system is being predated by rich domainers who will likely have an unfair advantage of you, the average Canadian looking for a good name.
To make matters even trickier, a handful of very rich domainers also own their registrar licence so they can buy up a domain, try it for seven (7) days and if it performs well, they can keep it and if it doesn’t, they just file for a full refund and return it to be “released” again. Since these domainers (who also happen to be registrars) are free to check the performance of as many domains as they want, with this scheme, almost all good TBRed names are likely to be grabbed before the average Canadian even has a chance to get to them.
So the Canadian TBR system isn’t fair.
It’s a nice try but it’s profoundly broken in the sense that money will almost always win over “a fair chance for everyone”. But that shouldn’t stop you from monitoring TBR names, especially if you’re seasoned in a specialty niche, because even rich domainers may miss “niched names”, once in a while.
For instance, on this very day, the following names are scheduled to be released:
Several more quality names, out the thousands being released, might turn out being excellent buys. You have to look at the list by yourself to locate those which relate with your areas of interest.
Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to grab the hottest domains because sometimes, a niche portfolio will do just fine to bring you that much closer to financial freedom.
Tags: cira, tbr, to be released, soon to be made available, domain names, domains, domainers, registrars, canada, dot ca, ca, dropped domains, expiring domain names, expired domains
Yet another price increase for the “.org”
Just last year, in 2007, the Public Interest Registry (known as the PIR) hiked the price of “.org” domains by 2,5% to $6,15 but that apparently wasn’t enough since this year, on November 9th, 2008, they increase the price -again- by 10% for a new record price of $6,75.
Furthermore, Alexa A.S. Raad, CEO of the PIR didn’t find it necessary to explain why such an increase was suddenly made necessary. She and her “senior management team” just decided that they would levy more “internet taxes” from the 7-or-so million dot org domain name owners.
Here’s a copy (in .pdf format) of Raad’s letter to the ICANN, announcing the PIR will be unilateraly jacking up the .org prices, in November.
So as far as accountability goes, the PIR isn’t going to win any prizes soon.
Perhaps the “senior management team” desperately vyed for a huge salary increase and simply decided to tax everyone else for their own lifestyle upgrade, who knows? The PIR provided no reason whatsoever for the increase so “the real reason” is up for speculation.
This new “.org” increase which applies to all new registrations, renewals and transfers between accredited registrars isn’t the only price hike the ICANN has blessed as the “.com” will increase 7% to $6,86 and the “.net” will go up 10% to $4,23, in October of 2008.
The most probable cause for all these increases is likely related to sheer greed, lack of credible oversight and a domain name scheme based on a largely unaccountable oligopoly.
In clear, domain name owners are powerless against these new taxes being forcefully levied against them. Such a state of affairs is unacceptable and until the price hikes are properly justified, there should be no upward movement in prices since, by all means, the only they should be going is… down!
Domain name owners shouldn’t be complacent against the tendency of the PIR-type of domain monopolies to jack up the prices whenever they want (probably on a whim) without any need for accountability.
For the readers who wonder who the “senior management” people are, at the PIR, here’s a shortlist:
- Alexa A.S. Raad - CEO (she signed the “price increase letter” to ICANN)
- David Maher - Senior Vice President, Law & Policy
- Pamela Miller - Director of Operations and Compliance
- Lance Wolak - Director of Marketing
- Nayla Foster - Head of Global Sales
- Lawrence C. Martin - Director of Finance & Administration
It would be interesting to see if their salary will increase after the Noverber 9th “.org” price increase since without properly justifying their 10% hike, it’s entirely plausible that they will personally profit from their “support” for it.
If you read through the PIR web site, you’ll find wholehearted tidbits like “this globally diverse group is committed to protecting your interests” but when the price of the “.org” registration goes up 10% without a single word of justification, it’s pretty hard to imagine that particular intervention was only made to “protect YOUR interests” as it was more likely intended to TAKE MORE MONEY FROM YOU, wether you like it or not.
Tags: dot org, .org, pir, public interest registry, registrars, icann, price increase, domains, renewals, transfers
The ICANN looks to introduce tiered pricing for .biz, info and .org gTLD domain names
All domain name owners, in the world, count on the fact that every year, the domain name renewal price should be stable between 6$US and 12$US, depending on the related services.
The ICANN is currently looking to enact a tiered pricing policy that would allow registrars to charge whatever they decide to renew a .biz, .info or .org domain name.
Here’s the way this nightmarish scenario plays out.
You buy a given domain name and you build it up. Visitors come in larger numbers and you’re finally on the first page of the search engine results. You’re quite happy with the way things are going. Life is good.
Then, one morning, you get a message from your registrar requesting that you renew your domain name for another year, based on the ICANN’s newly approved tiered pricing and this means instead of paying, let’s say 10$US a year, you’ll be charged 75,000$US because your domain name is now associated with a web site that is getting more attention (all based on the sole registrar’s appreciation).
Is that the worst nightmare ever, or what?
The simple fact the ICANN is looking to go forward with this terribly bad piece of legislation shows it has little or no respect for 99.999% of us, loyal domain name registrants.
If you don’t act now and tell the ICANN it’s proposed plan makes no sense and threatens to litterally stiffle, freeze and kill any kind of innovation online, next Monday, it might be too late… so act now!
Here’s how, write a message to any of these Public Comment Forums using the corresponding email addresses. For instance, I wrote to the biz-tld-agreement@icann.org forum because I own excellent .biz names.
Don’t take any chances, the ICANN has a troubled history of lacking good judgement and unilaterally favoring “registrar” friends, in their previous decisions — act now or risk seeing the end of the internet, as we know it.
Tags: icann, domain names, domains, legislation, registrars, .biz, .info, .org
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