

High price of '.sucks' to be investigated - jackgavigan
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32284922

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basseq
"It appears they are basing prices on what firms can afford not on the product
services they are providing."

Which would be sales 101: price your product or service to the value it will
create. (Look at any "freelance rate" discussion on HN, and you'll find a
comment about charging by the project vs. by the hour.)

If Apple is willing to pay $25k for apple.sucks, hey—that's the market rate.

Yes, it's a little predatory. But 1) predatory domain transactions haven't
been punished to date (e.g., squatting, expiration sniping, etc.) and 2)
welcome to the new world of gTLDs.

Here's a thought experiment: pretend it's .rocks we're talking about. Let's
say Apple will pay $25k for apple.rocks. Why the _hell_ wouldn't I have a
smart pricing algorithm that takes demand into account, as opposed to selling
in a FIFO fashion?

~~~
0x0
Domain names only work as long as everyone uses the same roots. It's pretty
crazy that whoever are trusted to tend the global registries make a killer
profit way above the cost to maintain the systems, especially by creating new
subtrees that nobody asked for.

Imagine if enough DNS operators get fed up with these shenanigans and
establish a properly run root.

Alternate roots used to be considered loopy and fringe, but the way things
have been run with the new tlds, maybe there's not such a big difference left
anymore...

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nicktelford
I hate the new gTLD system, it's turning the domain registration system in to
a protection racket.

Surely alarm bells should have started sounding when celebrities started
buying up their name .xxx, never to actually use them.

I'm utterly disgusted with ICANN. Putting profits before the health and
integrity of the Internet.

