[michaelt]

So if I buy a cheap unused nonsense word domain (say wikipedia.org) and turn it into a valuable domain by making a popular website many people visit and link to, 'the network' gets to shake me down because wikipedia.org is worth $20,000,000 now instead of the $20 I paid for it?

And as an end user, I don't know if visiting or e-mailing wikipedia.org will take me to an encyclopedia or a cybersquatter or a porn site?

Who exactly benefits from this system, except for 'the network'?

[oco101]

Not sure what you mean exactly but it works like that : Once you buy your domain at 20$ is is yours and you do whatever you want with it. The bidding auction applies only the first time you buy it nobody can touch your domain name one you purchased it.