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Can someone explain why it’s allowed for people to buy a domain cheap and not use it, then list it for thousands?

BAD

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,565
USA
Like... I want a domain name, I search for it, I get a "message the broker" prompt. I do it, annoyed because unlike normal domains, this one is for sale but doesn't list a price meaning an asshole has it. I wait and wait, and get an email. Click to see offer.

My first 2 domains were on hover/goDaddy for $12.

They want $2,500 for this unused domain.

That's trash. I have heard of some cases where a domain can be seized from someone who is abusing a business' name or trademarks or such with it but that is expensive too, like when ModernWarfare3.com was owned by a guy who routed it to Battlefield.com to be a troll.

Why is this allowed? Who did this to the internet?
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,954
Why would they not be allowed to do it? By default the internet is the wild west
 
Like the hat?

Like the hat?

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,580
My personal site which is my name dot com, got taken when my renewal lapsed. They wanted $5k for it. Good luck, buddy.
 

Deleted member 8861

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
10,564
It's because monetary transactions do not inherently carry any information about the past of the item you're selling. It's just a price ascribed to the current value of the item, according to market conditions. It doesn't carry any nuance or context about the (proposed) transaction.

It's expected that the current condition of the item you're selling will make up for this to some degree- something that's been used more than a brand new copy of the same thing will be worth less because it will be in a worse state (functionally or otherwise). When you get to stuff like software or domains where the item being traded cannot depreciate, that understanding breaks down.
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,206
I'm curious how you'd want to regulate it. If you have a stipulation that an actual website has to be serving from the domain, you'll just have people putting up generic websites (or doing redirects). How do you determine who has the higher rights to a domain you just thought up and wanted to buy? Maybe the other dude had a legitimate business he wants to start with it (probably not, but how would you determine that?)
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
People are allowed to purchase property, do what they want with it, and sell it for whatever price they want.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,052
This is one thing that ICANN has allowed pretty consistently over the last 30 years. You can usually get a domain released if you prove that the owner is squatting on it or trying to extort a business for money. But if someone had an idea for a domain name before you did, and bought it, there's nothing legally wrong with them squatting on it or letting their domain registrar, GoDaddy, use it for advertising. Most squatted domains run GoDaddy ads on them and they make a tiny fraction of ad credit from it.

There's bigger problems with the ICANN Registry, like .ORGs being moved to a for-profit TLD ownership which runs the risk of dramatically raising the cost of .ORG domains, squeezing non-profits. It hasn't happened yet, but it's a concern in the future.

The ICANN model, a mostly private/public partnership model, is the model that has allowed the internet to grow as quickly in the way that it has. The precursor to ICANN, a research organization at U. of Southern California, was partly funded by the American Department of Defense, giving the organization it's start (originally the functionality of ICANN was literally one guy, a professor and researcher in California who handled this himself, which is hilarious how quaint this was), but then when it grew ICANN was formalized and it's been funded by selling top-level-domains and getting a small subsidy of domain sales from TLD owners. ICANN is not run or owned by a government, which is, overall, a good thing, but it also means that there's almost nothing a government can do here other than laws that we already have that influences ICANN to crack down on squatting, etc.
 
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Mezzaerin

Mezzaerin

Member
Nov 19, 2019
19
Though this has bitten me in the ass a couple of times, I don't understand how you would regulate this given they're allowed to see their property as they wish. Definitely feel the pain, though.
 

Deleted member 862

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,646
pro tip: never search for a domain on a domain buying site if you don't plan to buy it because these sites buy them if you don't
 
curiouscharles

curiouscharles

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,960
If you already registered a business name / trademark that is clearly associated with said domain, you can get the domain surrendered for free by accusing them of domain squatting.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,052
Caspah said:
I thought cyber squatting was illegal now?
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Yeah, cyber squatting isn't allowed but that's when you're sitting on a trademark or other recognizeable brand that you have no provable ownership / connection to. In this case, let's say you and I have the same idea ... to deliver toast by bicycle with nude riders, and I register BicycleBakers.xxx but then never develop it into a business program, I can still own the domain. And then try to offer it to you for ~$1000 or something.
 
LakeEarth

LakeEarth

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,180
Ontario
My boss has a company and let the ".org" lapse (still has the .com), and for some reason someone bought it and the URL now links to a Russian escort website. It doesn't even make sense, as the URL name is just a science tech-sounding and has nothing, repeat, nothing to do with Russian escorts.

But I wonder if this is a strategy, if a company lapses on their domain, buy it and instead of forwarding it to generic page, send the user to something embarrassing. That encourages the company to pay the cost they ask for. As far as I know, he hasn't tried to purchase it back or anything.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,052
LakeEarth said:
My boss has a company and let the ".org" lapse (still has the .com), and for some reason someone bought it and the URL now links to a Russian escort website. It doesn't even make sense, as the URL name is just a science tech-sounding and has nothing, repeat, nothing to do with Russian escorts.
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This is really common, and sadly because the "company" is internationally owned it's going to be super hard to get it back. Though for what it's worth, your company probably shouldn't have owned a .org which... at least... by the original reason it was created is supposed to be a non-profit or non-commercial entities. These days though of course pretty much anything goes.
 
Not Spaceghost

Not Spaceghost

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,717
When Konami announced transfarring for MGS (which i guess never happened) one of my friends bought the domain "transfarring.com" and was hoping Konami would try to buy it off them.

He still owns it
 
Chikor

Chikor

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
14,239
808s & Villainy said:
You haven't actually given a reason why they shouldn't be able to do this because there really isn't one
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It's just speculative parasitic economic behavior.
People who do it don't make anything worthwhile, the only service they provide is higher prices for domain names, and on a macro level, they siphon money from actual productive people.
This is really just like scalping.

Whether or not it makes sense to actually do something about it is a different question, but I think it's fairly easy to see why this is not something positive.
 
molnizzle

molnizzle

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
17,695
I was once the Editor-of-Chief of GameCube.com before Nintendo seized the domain! I didn't know they could do that, but I was also 14.
 
Dali

Dali

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,184
null said:
pro tip: never search for a domain on a domain buying site if you don't plan to buy it because these sites buy them if you don't
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I've always been paranoid about this lol. I've been thinking of a site and I have a name, a unique name that's a mishmash of two words, but I've not searched to see if is taken for that reason.
 
collige

collige

Member
Oct 31, 2017
12,772
Dali said:
I've always been paranoid about this lol. I've been thinking of a site and I have a name, a unique name that's a mishmash of two words, but I've not searched to see if is taken for that reason.
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I think this depends on where you do your lookup. I can't image ICANN's site would be sharing their search history with third parties, but I can totally see GoDaddy or someone doing that.
 
LakeEarth

LakeEarth

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,180
Ontario
The Albatross said:
This is really common, and sadly because the "company" is internationally owned it's going to be super hard to get it back. Though for what it's worth, your company probably shouldn't have owned a .org which... at least... by the original reason it was created is supposed to be a non-profit or non-commercial entities. These days though of course pretty much anything goes.
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The .org made sense at the time cause my boss was also in non-profit academics, but it's not worth getting into.
 
StopMakingSense

StopMakingSense

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,730
Unless you have a trademark for that name/phrase, who's to say that anyone else has less of a right to own that domain than you do?
 
StopMakingSense

StopMakingSense

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,730
Dali said:
I've always been paranoid about this lol. I've been thinking of a site and I have a name, a unique name that's a mishmash of two words, but I've not searched to see if is taken for that reason.
Click to expand...
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Generally if a domain is available, the website won't resolve at all and give a browser error when you enter it into your url bar. Whereas unavailable domains will resolve to something, usually.
 
Mr Spasiba

Mr Spasiba

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,779
Outside of what people have said as far as established trademarks and such I'm not sure how else you can expect this to work. Who's to decide who would be more worthy of owning the domain name? If you get it and your site gets no traffic is someone else allowed to take it from you to see if their site fares better?
 
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