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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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

kbenson wrote: post #37
reaperducer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like you dropped your wallet on the street and the guy walking behind you picked it up and won't give it back unless you pay him.

No, it's more like you accidentally put something out on the street by your trash and someone came by and picked it up. Just because you got rid of it on accident doesn't mean you didn't get rid of it. And to forestall arguments about that being someone's property, trash on the street is considered public property in many (most?) jurisdictions, which is why the police don't need a warrant to go through it. Edit: and…

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by yonran »

Avamander wrote: post #21
yonran wrote: 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-... )

I know that having a domain name is a fun way to get to know a lot of computer-related concepts, making that opportunity less accessible for people does not sound like a good thing to me - I want future kids to be able to play with internet the same way, don't know if you relate or not. Not to mention if domains were more expensive we'd have more link-rot, which is already really nasty.

We can apply the same techniques used for progressive property taxes to prevent the two problems you identified: e.g., an owner-occupier exemption for a single domain name per person, and a deduction for investments in building the domain’s brand so that a domain with high pagerank or marketing investment pays a lower tax.

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

#43

Post by ohashi »

unreal37 wrote: post #36

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…

Also 'I had forgotten to renew it and it was immediately snatched up' means they didn't notice renewal emails, didn't notice the website stopped working, if it truly expired, it takes months go through that process without them noticing.

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

#44

Post by AnthonyMouse »

unreal37 wrote: post #35
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #33

Can someone explain why there isn't a rule that if you let a domain lapse then it stops working, but you have a year to renew it again before anybody else can buy it? Even if you really didn't want it anymore and somebody else did (and didn't want to wait the year), they could always just ask/pay you for it.

I mean, there's like 40 days to renew a domain once it expires. So you want to extend 40 days to 365? [1] The thing is, if you forgot to renew your domain, and didn't do it even 40 days after the expiry date, are you going to do it 365 days after? I think 40 days is a lot of time to check your email and see 20 emails from your registrar screaming at you to renew... [1] https://www.dynadot.com/community/help/question/…

> I think 40 days is a lot of time to check your email and see 20 emails from your registrar screaming at you to renew...

Apparently it isn't when so many people have it happen to them that there is a profitable business in registering the names right after they expire in order to sell them back to the original owners.

And there are a lot of domains, especially for personal use, that you might not notice disappear right away. The registrar has your old email that you don't check very often, the domain is for a low-traffic site you don't check very often, it takes a while for you to realize it. Meanwhile I can't see any legitimate disadvantage in it at all -- what's the big rush to assign the name to somebody else without the original owner's permission?

Also:

> Some domain extensions do not offer renewal and/or redemption periods or offer them for different lengths of time.

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

#45

Post by yonran »

oh_sigh wrote: post #34
yonran wrote: 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-... )

I don't understand how you can ever have a just society if society can deem at any point that your property is too valuable for you to hold anymore. Of course they happens in society today, but I don't see how making it easier for property to be forcibly reallocated would help create a more just society.

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?

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

#46

Post by crazydoggers »

ohashi wrote: post #43
unreal37 wrote: post #36

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…

Also 'I had forgotten to renew it and it was immediately snatched up' means they didn't notice renewal emails, didn't notice the website stopped working, if it truly expired, it takes months go through that process without them noticing.

Yes, this. People complaining about failed renewals always leave this out. On top of not noticing renewal notices, there’s a 45 day renewal grace period where you can renew the domain after it expires. And even if you miss that, there’s another 30 redemption grace period, where you can pay a fee and have the name restored anyway.

So you’re usually talking at least 2-3 months of not noticing or caring.

Registrars are also required to email domain holders and ask them to update their contact information and email yearly. So you’ve really got no excuse if you lose a domain via expiration.

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

#48

Post by kadoban »

mark-r wrote: post #38
zamadatix wrote: post #5

I settled on ds.gy after a lot of searching. At the time I was hoping for as short as possible unless you operate a domain (it's one letter off for standard, 2 if you operate a 2 letter TLD like http://ai./ ) since it maximizes the efficiency of DNS tunneling. I was expecting a lot of similar uses or a log of clever things/url shortners like t.co but what I found was basically every single and most every dual letter…

There's a reasonably large public company that has the name of my initials, so I never had a chance with that one. I do have two friends who were much more forward thinking and managed to get their 3 initial .com domains early enough before they were gobbled up. I also tried to get my full name, but that was already taken too. He's a performer so it's probably in better hands but that doesn't lessen my disappointment…

Aren't 3 letter domains worth a fairly insane amount of money? Did they sell them?

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

#49

Post by crazydoggers »

unreal37 wrote: post #36

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 priced at what the market demands. And with name domains... who says you get that name when there are probably tons of other people sharing your exact name. Should you get a house on Smith Dr, just because you share that last name?

Stop treating generic domains like no one should own them... they’re valuable internet real estate, and they deserve to be priced accordingly.

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

#50

Post by reificator »

14 wrote: post #39
techsupporter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. If the person is Canadian and the domain isn't for a "generic brand," then no, I'd actually say that .ca is more valuable than .com. It makes the name more personal to the individual and, in an industry where a lot of us have our own domains, uniqueness can be more valuable.

I am Canadian. I have no direction for a website, pondered a few ideas over the years, but no exact need for a website at this point in time. But now that I own my domain perhaps I will slap something together and see what comes if it. But like I mention I know very little about how to do any of this. But I do like reading HN so information is something I find interesting. I hope I can find some obscure way to use my…

The default is simply to use it for a personal email address. Then redirect HTTP requests to whatever page you'd want someone to see, like a github profile or whatever.
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