[kerkeslager]

Would it be an undue burden to require people like you to put up a page saying, "This is my personal domain which I use primarily for email."?

Can we just agree that nobody is posting the full proposed set of rules on HN, and nobody is trying to take away your domain?

Every time this solution to domain squatting is proposed, someone counters with your objection as if it's a huge problem with the idea, but it just isn't. Surely you can imagine a set of rules that shuts down a large number of domain squatters but allows your use case.

[jefftk]

How do you write rules that allow "this is my personal domain that I use for email" and not squatting? Can't the squatters just say something along those lines?

[kerkeslager]

Sure, they can say that.

And if they are a big company that owns hundreds of thousands of unrelated domains with no apparent email traffic, it would be pretty obvious that it's untrue.

So sure, a lot of small bad actors would get away with it. But it would could potentially take out the biggest bad actors.

[franga2000]

If the squatters have to do that, then their squatting has no value to them. The point of squatters is to eventually sell the domain and if all the domains look "in use" (so no parking allowed), the amount of people sending offers will fall.

[kortilla]

What a joke, within days of such rules being announced, a system would emerge to discover which domains might be willing to sell even though they would put up an “in-use” page.

[franga2000]

Still much better than the current system. At least users who aren't familiar with it would just see the domain is "taken" and move along, not see a billion ads and a "contact us to buy" button. I've seen people who didn't even realize that was "outside the system" and thought that's how domains are supposed to be sold.

And either way, even a bad countermeasure would be better than nothing, as it would show that squatting is not longer tolerated. It would set a precedent for stricter regulation later on, because as it stands right now, ICANN is actively ignoring the problem and happily collecting their 14¢ fees.

As for a better solution, first ban all advertisement of peer-to-peer sales of domain names (so only registrars may offer a domain for sale). That should improve the situation significantly.

[anonsivalley652]

The "domain squatting" meme is intellectually dishonest and based on envy. People who buy zillions of domains must be allowed if people are allowed to buy as many stamps, boxes of paper, cars, jet skis or houses as they wish. It's called freedom, property rights and being consistent. If you want one of their domains that they registered and paid for before you so badly, inquire if they will sell it; if they choose to or not is their choice, and you are not entitled to it simply because you want it.

[toyg]

Domains are real estate. Periodic land reform / redistribution is a staple of human history, when things become patently unbalanced for society as a whole.

[ryanlol]

Is domain distribution patently unbalanced for society as a whole? What does that even mean? Should everyone be able to get a short dictionary word .com domain?

[toyg]

> Is domain distribution patently unbalanced for society as a whole?

Not entirely yet, or it would have already entered the political debate. However, in many ways the proliferation (and success) of alternative TLDs indicates that there is an issue. You shouldn't have to use an Indian Ocean domain because .com is squatted to the wazoo.

We have lived through the land-grab era, sooner or later the redistribution era will come.

> Should everyone be able to get a short dictionary word .com domain?

Considering there are less than a million 4-ascii-letter combinations, obviously not. But there could be more stringent criteria for assignment and revocation, like limits per-company and per-individual, escalating costs in a way that hoarding becomes uneconomical, banning parking (which is absolutely doable, you just need an actual human judge), and so on.

[franga2000]

The difference between domain names and let's say cars or boxes of paper, as you put it, is so obvious, I didn't think it needed saying. It's that (usable) domains are a unique and finite, whereas all your other examples are neither. You can't just wait for the next batch of domains to come out of the factory and buy them from their manufacturer (new gTLDs were an attempt at that and failed miserably).

It's the same problem as land. We have more and more people that need it, yet the supply is by definition finite. Hoarding it for yourself not only contributes nothing to the community, it actively prevents others from doing so.

[davinic]

You are correct, but our entire economy is setup to reward the exact land hoarding that against which you are arguing. OP is asking why domain name ownership would be treated differently.

[kerkeslager]

"would" and "should" are not the same word.

[ryanlol]

> The "domain squatting" meme is intellectually dishonest and based on envy

Yup. Still waiting to hear a more nuanced explanation of the supposed “problem” than this.

[ryanlol]

> Would it be an undue burden to require people like you to put up a page saying, "This is my personal domain which I use primarily for email."?

Yes, this is a terrible idea.

> Surely you can imagine a set of rules that shuts down a large number of domain squatters but allows your use case.

Nope, how do you intend to perform these usage audits?

[namibj]

Random, but focused on those who register many domains?

[ryanlol]

That doesn’t really explain the implementation. How would you know that two domains are owned by the same person without completely revamping the role of registrars?

[vibrafox]

The MX record should be enough.

[anonsivalley652]

I hate to say it, but "domain squatters" pay for domains like everyone else. You have to take the shit with the sugar in a free society, not shit on everyone's personal liberties with Code of Conducts or "occupation" requirements. There's no perfect policy or "solution" that can fix every moral panic without causing other problems. And not every moral panic needs to be fixed either. That's life, sorry.

[bobbydroptables]

The fact that they can pay for it doesn't mean they're entitled to it as a logical matter.

I'm not saying a fix is or isn't needed, but there are all kinds of things we restrict despite ability to pay. For example, you can't buy a social security number without a person or a physical address without physical land to tie it to.

Your comment doesn't prove your conclusion.