The .blog Bait and Switch

This seems to have become the de facto pattern with the new gTLD system. A company swoops in and buys a namespace for $200k (or more if there is a competitive bid), and they effectively turn into the cartel equivalent of the domain squatter.

You can register your new gTLD for anywhere between $1 and $100, depending on what I suppose they expect their target demographic to be willing to pay. Dot horse is more expensive than dot webcam, for instance, and I imagine dot lawyer is more expensive than dot lol.

However, if your domain name uses a word or phrase that happens to be in their "premium domain" dictionary, then they'll charge an elevated price based on heuristics similar to what yesteryear's domain squatters used. Some simple and concise domains can run hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  cheap.horse is $25/yr
  tiny.horse is $100/yr
  internet.horse is $1000/yr
  free.horse is "ask us"

Controlling the TLD is the ultimate form of domain squatting.

I wonder what will happen when some of these companies go under because they can no longer afford to pay off their debts? Will those that registered domain names lose them outright? Can someone else buy the gTLD and take them all over?

I have a last name that's extremely uncommon. MyLastName.com was available for many, many years. I thought about buying it a few times in the last 20 or so years but I don't have any use for it so I didn't. Two years ago it was bought by a domain squatter who was probably iterating through the white pages. Now that I can't have it I want it (I guess human nature) but they are asking like $2k for it. It seems somehow "unfair" that "my" last name is being "held hostage" by some faceless company that's just trying to make a quick buck.

Sounds like ICANN needs to replace the fee + tax scheme with Dutch auctions.

I was keeping a close eye on .family for quite a while - I'm getting married next year, so mysurname.family would have been a good domain to have both for wedding planning and personal email accounts.

When it finally came out, I eagerly went to my favourite registrar to try and buy it, and found that it's listed at over £1000. It's not a particularly common name either. Out of interest, I tried a few other surnames off the top of my head, and it seems that pretty much any domain that could be somebody's surname has been bumped up massively.

Of course, they have every right to do that, but the people buying these domains are individuals - very few of these domains are ever going to have a business use. To me, it looks like they've done nothing more than price themselves out of the whole point of their TLD.

Instead, I'm going to wait out the expiry of the .com, which isn't being squatted as such, but it is owned by a company for a single software product of theirs which looks like it was written in the 90s and requires you to send a cheque if you want to buy it. The last update was helpfully reminding visitors that the app wouldn't be compatible with the upcoming OS X Lion. One day, they'll stop renewing that domain...my time will come.

I'll tell my TLD story. I was following .family for a long time, since my current "primary domain" is horrible and hard to say. .family sounded pretty awesome.

There was that whole pre-registration BS but it is so convoluted and expensive I just waited till it went live. It did, and when I checked on my last name, it was set at $1200/year for a normally $30/year domain. This was when I was introduced to the idea of reserved domains in this new TLD system.

So I emailed them and put forth my argument, that this TLD in particular is a bit unfair, considering I don't control what name I'm born with. I didn't think it would have any impact, because $$$.

One day I got an email and they offered me to buy it for a one-time price of $1200 and then the renewal would be set at $30. I said no. There are so many TLDs now that it's easy to get a common-word, easy-to-say one.