[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.