Part Two of our look at the recent PAB policy papers looks at Domaining! That is to say the trading of domain names and associated services.
The FSB Paper
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) were asked to comment and have supplied a position paper. In this they recognise Domaining as a ‘growing industry’ and one that will be around for the foreseeable future.
As with any industries there are the good, the bad and the evil, and then those who declare they will Do No Evil. The FSB would like to protect the ‘vulnerable’, the example give is someone visiting FredBloggs.co.uk rather than FredBloggs.net .
The FSB paper is quite lightweight and does not show great understanding of the issue, confusing the need to ‘protect’ a name via choosing a decent ISP and keeping up to date with renewals etc to that of the legitimacy of purchasing generic names, and the ‘evil’ of cybersquatting.
The FSB mentions that if a third party owns a domain name and will not sell it for ‘the average’ of £15 it is bad luck. Sadly this is 2007 and if anyone believes they can get a decent domain name for 15 quid then it is the personnel department that needs a call to hire some IT staff that live in the real world.
Thankfully Sedo will be making a presentation which ought to mention the average sales price on their platform (low £xxxx) and inject a little reality feedback on the domain market.
The Executive Paper
The interesting paper is the Nominet Executive review ( PDF here ) covering ‘Domaining, dropcatching and the secondary market’, which covers DAC stats and renewal fees. The secondary market has been lost in the ether it seems.
DAC is the Nominet quick whois system, created to take load off the main public whois. It is a quick return interface returning the status of a given domain name.
In summary the paper states:
- 306 DAC subscriptions.
- 106 ‘active’ DAC users.
- 20% of names in 2006 of deleted names are dropcaught.
- That is £650,000 of revenue in 2006 from dropcatchers, not including renewals and transfer fees!
One further comment that stands out in the paper is the term ’suspected anti-abuse groupings’, which implies Nominet knowledge of groups acting together to share resources but as of yet not formally linked. This will only fuel the fires of pitchfork wielding domainers who believe cheating is the way to get a great domain name.
Perhaps it is time the PAB advises Nominet that yes the emperor is infact naked and there is a thriving domain market out there. The question is does Nominet want to stay out of it (by keeping first come first served) or auction off expired domain names.