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How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

jerryalex.com

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Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#61
post #14

Have any TLDs attempted to implement a property tax on domains according to value to reduce cyber squatting? To implement a property tax, Glen Weyl and Eric Posner have proposed using self-assessment so that users pay what they want ( https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2818494 and https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-... )

What are the terms by which value is measured?

Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#62

I think a lot of people don't know what "domain squatting" is. If there's a domain you want, but someone else has it but is not using it, that's not squatting. If you let your personal name domain expire, and someone else registers it, that's not squatting. In order for it to be squatting, they have to be trying to profit off a trademark. I assume Jerry Alex is not a trademark. "Cybersquatting (also known as domain s…

People like to think that generic domain names are somehow common property or something, and anyone holding that property for profit is somehow evil. It’s as if someone bought the lot across from your house, and then sold it for a profit and you say “Hey! That’s next door to me... they are evil to hold or sell it.. what if my friends/parents, etc want to live there!?” Why do people think generic names shouldn’t be pr…

> People like to think that generic domain names are somehow common property or something, and anyone holding that property for profit is somehow evil.

Buying property anywhere and then sitting on it without developing it is a negative for everyone in that community, so of course its "evil" and frowned upon.

> It’s as if someone bought the lot across from your house, and then sold it for a profit and you say “Hey! That’s next door to me... they are evil to hold or sell it.. what if my friends/parents, etc want to live there!?”

If that person bought the lot with no intention of ever building on it... you're exactly right! That's terrible, and most developments strongly discourage this sort of situation by requiring the buyer to build a house to a certain standard within a certain period of time, all to avoid empty lots all over the place.

> And with name domains... who says you get that name when there are probably tons of other people sharing your exact name.

Nobody. Nobody says that. What people say is that the first person with an intention of building something on it should get it, and not just the richest person with that name. Squatters prevent anyone using the domain until someone with a lot of money to spend shows up.

Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#63

I think a lot of people don't know what "domain squatting" is. If there's a domain you want, but someone else has it but is not using it, that's not squatting. If you let your personal name domain expire, and someone else registers it, that's not squatting. In order for it to be squatting, they have to be trying to profit off a trademark. I assume Jerry Alex is not a trademark. "Cybersquatting (also known as domain s…

People know full well what they're talking about: holding domains for profit, not any crime, not domain underuse, not domain snatching. That may not be the legal definition of "domain squatting", but neither are the common and legal definitions the same for "brief", "motion", or "harassment". US law narrowing a term doesn't make common use wrong.

Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#65
post #60
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize that the reason the squatter abandoned the domain (instead of keeping it forever) is the $8/year registry fee? My question is why should the squatter pay only $8 per year, and not, say, $50?

Why should they pay $50? What are you charging for above cost of service?

When speculators hold onto domain names without using them, their right to exclude imposes a cost on the other member of society who wishes to use the property productively. So like progressive property taxes in general, a domain tax should be high enough not only to pay for the direct cost of services, but also to discourage idle speculators and encourage owners to use the domain productively.

Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#66

Timely. Not very relevant, but I just sold a domain I've owned for 5 years after being contacted by GoDaddy's brokerage service about an interested buyer. It was actually cathartic for me -- not only did I realize that I may seem like the squatter to someone else in this situation, but it forced me to come to terms with the fact that I won't be working on that idea, ever.

> it forced me to come to terms with the fact that I won't be working on that idea, ever. I think this is a feeling so many people working in the web sphere have to contend with at some point.

I had this, myself. I had a similarly named domain in the early 2000s. I think, technically, I was there first, and I had my name registered as a combo of a gaming tag + "tech" in the domain name. If I had more resources, maybe I could have secured the name, but they jad had a full company, and I wad just exploring amd didnt have anything commercial in the works.

I decided to just let it go and let my domain expire. I didnt approach the company to try and sell it, just let it expire. I wasn't squatting, amd I intended to use it, but the purpose didn't materialize, so I let it go. I never had any communication from the similarly named company; I dont even know if theyre still around. I just didnt renew when my time expired.

Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#67
post #61
post #14

Have any TLDs attempted to implement a property tax on domains according to value to reduce cyber squatting? To implement a property tax, Glen Weyl and Eric Posner have proposed using self-assessment so that users pay what they want ( https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2818494 and https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-... )

What are the terms by which value is measured?

In the paper by Glen Weyl linked above, the property tax should be set at about 1/normal turnover rate (e.g. 1/30 years = 3.3% per year), owners should declare their own assessed value for which they pay the tax (e.g. on the $1500 asking price in the article, the tax could be about $50/year assuming a 3.3% tax rate), and then if someone else wishes to buy the property they can purchase at the same self-assessed value.

Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to think that generic domain names are somehow common property or something, and anyone holding that property for profit is somehow evil. It’s as if someone bought the lot across from your house, and then sold it for a profit and you say “Hey! That’s next door to me... they are evil to hold or sell it.. what if my friends/parents, etc want to live there!?” Why do people think generic names shouldn’t be pr…

> People like to think that generic domain names are somehow common property or something, and anyone holding that property for profit is somehow evil. Buying property anywhere and then sitting on it without developing it is a negative for everyone in that community, so of course its "evil" and frowned upon. > It’s as if someone bought the lot across from your house, and then sold it for a profit and you say “Hey! Th…

You’re talking about housing developments where the owner of the land requires builders to build certain numbers of houses. That’s because they are in the process of developing it already and want it to be appealing to home buyers.

Prior to that the land was owned, probably for a long period of time, before the area was deemed worthy of development.

Do you really think there are just empty tracks of land waiting for the first buyer... that are held by whom???

No... someone took a risk and bought the land speculating that eventually the land would be wanted by someone to develop something on it. Same as purchasing a domain, paying the yearly fees... and hoping eventually some one will want to develop on it.

And if it’s beach front property... the equivalent of a nice domain name... it’s gonna go for a lot more.

Again, there’s no public trust or anything to hold property just in case someone wants to develop on it, because who decides who gets to use it?

Instead there are private investors taking a risk to carry the property, possibly for a loss.

> Nobody. Nobody says that. What people say is that the first person with an intention of building something on it should get it, and not just the richest person with that name. Squatters prevent anyone using the domain until someone with a lot of money to spend shows up.

That’s some utopia!! Who decides if what you’re building is valid or useful? What if I just display “hello” on the page? How about relevant ads related to the domain? What if I want to display my favorite music... what if my son just wants to post pictures of his LEGO’s? Who defines the line?? You’re gonna say “hello” or “ads” doesn’t count but pictures of Legos do? Why? You or some cabal get to dictate what speech is relevant? Your method of handing domains to the first person with “intention” quickly falls into abuse, corruption, censorship, etc.

I’d rather have a free market, thanks.

Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#69

Good for you Jerry! I hope I never forget my renewal myself! Luckily I use Gandi as a registrar and they're good about reminders to their clients!

I have Google Domains autorenew my domain for me. Does Gandi have something similar?

Yes

Re: How I finally won my name from domain resellers after nine years of waiting

#70
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

out of curiosity, how does that work?

This is surprisingly hard to explain off the cuff. In DNS, zones are separated by dots, and a fully-qualified domain name ends in a dot. The zones exist because there are too many domains for just one server to handle and this way zones can be distributed and managed separately. DNS queries right to left, for “Google.com.” it would look at “.” and query the root servers asking if they know “Google.com.”, they could r…

> The zones exist because there are too many domains for just one server to handle and this way zones can be distributed and managed separately.

Though that's not really true in practice. Com hasn't exploded under the amount of traffic it faces, and merging in the other zones would only be about twice the load.

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