[tptacek]

Everybody "domainsquats". People joke with each other about how many names they have in their registrar account. These particular people chose an extraordinarily reasonable price point just for the name, and added design services on top.

They could charge 4x as much and probably close just as much business, because $1000 is a rounding error for a serious 2-person startup.

I don't see why you're bagging on them.

[phillmv]

I think a reasonable argument to make against domain squatting is that those who do it as a business… are just charging you a fee solely because they thought of it first. It feels very much like a pure wealth transfer from me to a more entrenched player.

It's somewhat analogous to say most software patents, in that their sole purpose seems to be enacting a social cost. You're not going to do anything with that patent/domain, you're just going to wait until someone else thinks of it as well.

[tptacek]

Why are we entertaining the idea that there's an argument to be had about domain squatting?

I wish we had enacted policies against squatting back in the '90s. But Internet governance did very much the opposite thing. This argument ended a long time ago. Why piss in the wind about it? In the post-domain-squatting world, this is a great offering.

[larrys]

"I wish we had enacted policies against squatting back in the '90s."

What would your suggestion be as far as a policy that could have stopped domain squatting?

I can't think of a scenario that you could have that would allow someone to purchase a name but then not allow them to sell the name. So what you would end up with is names that are registered but have not found their way (through the free market) to the best possible use.

People tend to think that if the name they wanted wasn't owned by a squatter who was trying to sell it it would be available when they decided they wanted to use it. It would just be sitting there and not in the hands of someone else for a non squatting purpose.

As recently as 2001 I remember attorneys asking if they could use the domain law.com because "I type it in and nothing comes up". As if nobody thought of using that in the prior years or something (and this happened with many names actually).

I'd really like to know your thoughts on this.

[sneak]

> What would your suggestion be as far as a policy that could have stopped domain squatting?

I've often thought of this. I think $500/year or $1000/year is an entirely reasonable price for a .com domain, and would immediately clear out mountains of cruft. Even $50 or $100/year would get 50-75% of it.

[larrys]

True it would certainly cut down significantly on people registering domain names on speculation.

But it would also prevent many people from getting their own site because of the cost. I don't think you would have many people taking as many chances as has happened with the current pricing.

Lowering costs has helped the net even though there are undesirable consequences as with anything.

[sneak]

Sovereign countries would still be able to do whatever they wanted in their own gTLDs, so I doubt it would actually reduce the number of sites people have.

Some .ly domain works just as well as a .com, technically.

It would just get rid of all the noise in com/net/org.

[michaeldhopkins]

That would just reduce the pool of desirable names for both squatters and other users, so the problem would not be mitigated at all. Even if a domain cost a million a year, squatters would still exist in proportion to the demand for domains. Raising fees is not a solution at all.

[gridspy]

If it wasn't possible to sell a name, a domain that wasn't worth $10/yr to the current owner would have been released back into the market.

[larrys]

So then you are saying that if you start a business with a name (say a site selling something, even a pet rock) you can't sell that business with the name?

(See where this is going?)

[gridspy]

I didn't say that preventing domain sales was an ideal that was possible to enforce.

[phillmv]

Hrm. Touché.

[larrys]

"are just charging you a fee solely because they thought of it first."

For some domains, true. In other cases considering that back in the day there were an infinite number of domains that you could register (and by the way they cost $70.00 after they were initially free) and $35 per year (until ICANN and competition dropped the price) I wouldn't say it was simply "thinking of it first".

As somebody who spent much time programming algorithms to figure out which domains to, um, SQUAT on, I would hardly say I own names just because "I merely thought of it". It seems like that way now because now value has been established and it's obvious.

Do you think it was obvious back then? It wasn't. I was there.

[phillmv]

I don't understand why anything you just said invalidates anything I just said – but I would be glad if you took another stab at explaining it to me.

[larrys]

There is a transfer of wealth here simply because the person who gets the name had the knowledge to get the name. (As Zuckerberg said to the Winklevi). And knowledge it took.

It's not something anyone I knew did. I didn't get the idea from anyone or even read about anyone doing this type of thing. It was totally organic.

And it wasn't something my sister or her uncle had either the knowledge or the skills to do. I knew perl and shell scripting and had worked with Unix for some time. (Back before the Internet with 1 or two books on a machine that costs $40,000 that I paid for in 1980's dollars. Meaning $40,000 in 1985 for an AT&T 3b2-400 back when that was simply not done at a company that size at that time.) My point being that I didn't just wake up in the morning and buy a pack of gum and make money.

It's not like patent trolls because there are many possible names that someone can use for their business. And if they have a trademark for a particular term then this is a non issue because there are procedures for getting that domain name (UDRP and other legal procedures). Which by the way are slanted against domainers. (And domainers know this by the way and take it into account in their dealings if they are smart.)

[jleader]

Do you find it reasonable that people can "own" domain names? I think so, because unlike a software patent, a domain name is really hard to share with everyone simultaneously.

Do you think people should be allowed to buy and sell things they own?

All arbitrage is a "pure wealth transfer", but it's also how we increase the liquidity of markets.

If someone else is using a domain name you'd like to use, and they're willing to sell it to you for a price you find reasonable, that's OK, right? Why should the sale be forbidden if they're not currently using the name?

[lurker19]

Because defunct property can be condemned.

[lambda]

In general, I agree with you about domain squatting.

What makes this case a lot more palatable is that they have actually put the time and effort in to mock up a logo to go along with the domain. Sure, it's not much, but they did actually add some value, they are not simply generating names and registering them automatically. It may or may not be worth $250, but it's a lot better than people selling just domains for thousands just because they got there first.

[wildmXranat]

No, not everybody domain squats. We, in the tech business might have a few spare domains left over from unfulfilled projects or ideas and that's absolutely great. I don't agree that putting a 'reasonable' price point on a bad practice is O.K.

Their process does not add value. Let me reiterate: Allow me to buy the name at a discount price, but still at a 600% or so markup over the $8 price. Add value to the process by allowing me to bundle more of your services and maybe you'll have a customer.

[tptacek]

Bluntly: this argument happened over a decade ago. We lost. The domain market is run with all the incentives set for people to hoard domains and sell them dearly on the proposition that they will to the owner eventually be worth 5+ figures.

All you're doing here on HN is --- whether you realize it or not --- brainwashing nerds into believing the market works in ways that it does not.

In the real world, this is an extraordinarily generous offering that absolutely hits a sweet spot in reducing pain for new startups. Every one of the entrepreneurs on this site have gone through days, weeks, sometimes months of pain trying to brand a new product. I have products I haven't started working on yet solely because I can't figure out a name I don't hate.

Please stop conning nerds into thinking the world works the way you want it to.

[rokhayakebe]

They could charge 4x as much

I know someone who does this for a living. And I know for a fact he sold some domain for 500x as much. He has a $100,000 chest just to buy domains and sit on them for years if necessary. For larger domain acquisition he usually gets the money from other sources.