
Here comes the greatest Internet landgrab in history - iand
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57450838-93/here-comes-the-greatest-internet-landgrab-in-history/?tag=postrtcol;posts
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crikli
Semi-related: I've started several businesses, consulted with other
startups...basically spent a lot of time trying to come up with business names
only to find that a depressingly high percentage of the corresponding domains
are being camped on by some clown who wants a ridiculous sum of money.

Domain squatting is without worth and indefensible. Squatters create _nothing_
and they provide _nothing_ of value in exchange for the extraordinary premiums
they demand. It is a wholly extractive business model that costs entrepreneurs
like myself thousand of dollars with no discernable return.

I recognize that squatting is the (semi)free market at work and as a pretty
hard core libertarian I respect that. This does not, however, make me any less
contemptuous of the business model or any less desirous of the opportunity to
beat a squatter with a shovel.

EDIT: Changed verbiage, replacing the term "domainer" with "squatter."

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larrys
"camped on by some clown"

Why is that language necessary?

"Domain squatting is without worth and indefensible."

"Squatters" buy something with the hopes of reselling. Exactly what is wrong
with that other than you are frustrated that you don't want to pay for what
they have to sell? Are you also frustrated that real estate in Silicon Valley
or NYC sells for so much money? That some people bought at the right time and
can now sell for more? That some people own homes and don't use them full
time? That someone should get to use the home and they should give them up?

"Squatters create nothing and they provide nothing of value"

They can provide a domain name that you want. Read below on what happens when
a domain is owned by someone that doesn't care about money (google).

I understand that HN is certainly against squatters in the worst way. And that
it is frustrating to deal with some domain sellers (this is part of what I do
for people).

I'm not defending the practices of some who are unreasonable. (I also want to
point out that I am both on the buying and selling end just like an attorney
can represent both parties in a lawsuit. I also own domain names as further
disclosure and I've sold them for plenty of money.)

There is a domain I was trying to get for someone that google owned and it was
very clear they weren't going to sell the domain. Not for any price. Any
price. They don't need the money. It took hours of effort to just track down
the person who controlled the domain for google. No dice. Had the domain been
owned by a speculator a deal would have been done easily. This happens
frequently actually. You have a better chance of getting a domain if it's not
being used at all and owned by someone who wants to make money then you do if
it's owned by a company that either doesn't need the money or is using it for
their bakery and doesn't want to rebrand.

"beat a squatter with a shovel"

I think you have to think about this. You have a serious anger problem.

~~~
EvilTerran
_Why is that language necessary?_

What, "clown"? That's about the least offensive way of expressing frustration
at people there is -- why is complaining about it necessary?

 _"Squatters" buy something with the hopes of reselling. Exactly what is wrong
with that ..._

All the usual problems with speculators, really: inflated prices, leading to
non-speculators being priced out of the market; market instability as the
speculators stampede one way or the other, being bubbles in the extreme case;
etc etc.

 _They can provide a domain name that you want._

That's misinterpreting "provide nothing of value", and you know it.

 _You have a serious anger problem._

Because, of course, a cartoonish description on the internet of hypothetical
violence is indicative of "a serious anger problem". And I'm the Pope.

~~~
crikli
_Because, of course, a cartoonish description on the internet of hypothetical
violence is indicative of "a serious anger problem". And I'm the Pope._

I bit the shovel thing from Patton Oswalt anyway. :)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDCjIjsZp_Y>

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harbud
The winner will be ICANN who laughs all the way to the bank with hundreds of
new gTLD registration fees (equalling tens of millions of US$). The losers
will most probably be companies like uniregistry.com (or, more specifically,
their investors) who will register tens of new gTLDs and later find out that
they are not worth as much.

~~~
GoodIntentions
I wish I could put this comment to the top of the page. How many TLD/ccTLDs
are there already? The primary interest being served here would seem to be
ICANN's. As a user, I may well register some of these new domains, but I'm
kind of looking at it sidewise atm.

What value does it bring? Just more dilution of the already huge namespace for
the most part.

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marquis
Aren't tlds just a landgrab from the start, making money for the registrars?
The original RFC882 never stated domain.com - their example was blue.colors,
red.colors etc. What happened that we became stuck with these country level
TLDs, and why can't I register myname.lastname?

<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc882>

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dfc
A more appropriate but less link baiterrific title would be:

 _Here comes the greatest Internet terraform in history_

I do not understand why the article leads with Schilling making a fortune when
it should begin by describing the piles of money that ICANN is printing...

~~~
jessedhillon
_Here comes the circus_ would be more correct, in my opinion

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hcho
I am finding it hard to believe that this will be such a landgrab. The demand
to already existing non .com TLDs doesn't indicate that there will be a huge
demand for new ones.

~~~
loceng
I can see people registering main keywords, or playful phrases that work.. eg:
about.me etc.. However then those will just turn into cybersquatting and
auctioning off in most cases. I can see it causing confusion in some
situations as well.

~~~
seanp2k2
Yup. I hate this idea. If anything, we need /fewer/ gTLDs. No one uses .mobi,
.travel, .museum, etc. If you're serious, you still get a .com.

"movies.youtube" sounds like nothing I'd care to visit.

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sopooneo
Currently, the "dot com/net/org" at the end of a spoken domain name clues the
listener in to what they just heard. You think, "oh, a domain name, I'll visit
it on my browser." But without that, a new spoken standard may have to be
developed. If I hear "go to mint", without any other context, I will not know
if that means a night club or a web site. Perhaps we'll have to say "www dot
mint" to make it clear, but that's not optimal.

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ajays
Who will have control over these gTLDs? What I mean by that is: .com is
controlled by the USG (indirectly). They can get a judge to take away a domain
on a whim. Will that be the case with these new TLDs?

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rwhitman
Are there restrictions or requirements for owners of new TLDs to offer domains
for sale at a reasonable price? Or if someone wants a website at
myrecipes.food do they now have to pay a premium extortionate amount to the
gTLD owner?

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sgdesign
I don't see domains like .movies or .brand-name working at all. On the other
hand, new two-letters domain could be useful. Like .ng ("runnin.ng"), .ay
("pl.ay"), etc.

But I don't know if those are included in the new tlds?

~~~
callmevlad
A lot of the two-character TLDs are already associated with countries.

The .ng extension is Nigeria's, and goes for a whopping $50,000 per year. [1]

The .ay TLD belongs to Adygea (a republic within Russia). [2]

[1] <http://www.101domain.com/ng.htm>

[2] <http://nationstates.wikia.com/wiki/.ay>

Edit: Formatting

~~~
dchest
There is no .ay domain.

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larrys
"He's put up $60 million of his own money to stake his claim on a giant"

Unfortunately this is a typical article simply quoting what someone says as if
it is fact. If you do the math on what it cost to apply for the TLD's it would
be more like $10,000,000 not $60,000,000.

At the very least it would have been correct to say "He says he plans to
invest up to $60,000,000" not to make a statement of fact. This is exactly how
the media builds legends. "He's put up" indicates a statement of fact that is
to be believed.

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zerostar07
Didn't the last land grab (.info/.movie etc) end soon? Why would this one be
different?

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possibilistic
After the initial land grab is over, will these ever reach a price where we
can afford them as individuals? I'd like to own a few.

~~~
mjwalshe
No running a registry is not a cheap or easy endeveor (I used to be one of the
owners of .coop)

~~~
ohashi
I would love to hear the story about .coop. Have you written about it anywhere
or would you be willing to chat privately about it? my details are in my
profile.

~~~
mjwalshe
I was one the profesional servies side trying to keep poptel running - though
I did sit next to the tech lead.

<http://www.andrewbibby.com/socialenterprise/poptel2.html> has some details.
And I did have to chair a share holder meeting and put the founder in his
place when we where discussing a reorg.

You coudl try contacting Malcolm Corbett hes on face book at
<http://www.facebook.com/malcolm.corbett.9>

~~~
ohashi
Thanks for that!

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sillylogger
I dont understand how 'domainers' see opportunity in this. The market they
operate in is being flooded with new product. This enables people to get more
creative with their domains... running.com can now be run.ning.

~~~
notJim
Who do you think is going to try to buy all the domains like run.ning?
Domainers, of course.

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alexro
If this scheme takes up then domain names like mint.com which are currently
make sense solely because they are short and easy, will have no way of
sounding great for a financial webapp.

Many websites will have to revise their names.

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dmbaggett
At $185,000 per gTLD "processing fee", ICANN seems to have "earned" over $350M
from this effort. Nice work if you can get it. I totally get why this is great
for the Internet now.

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krschultz
We barely got people to use .net, .org, .ly, .info, .me, .tv. What makes us
think they will use these effectively?

~~~
jmduke
ICANN isn't doing this as a B2C venture -- they're targeting companies with
enough cash to protect their names.

~~~
ohashi
Which is exactly what .info, .biz and other new TLDs did to make cash as well.
Each TLD that launched was assured something like 200-300k registrations from
brands/speculators. Now, ICANN can jump on the money-printing bandwagon.

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thatusertwo
A lot of the extensions his company is offering seem to have a pretty limited
range of potential customers.

