[A83] Re: [OT] Squatter practices (was Re: A couple ...)
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[A83] Re: [OT] Squatter practices (was Re: A couple ...)
> I'm curious as to what kind of domains the squatters register.
> I recon' it'd be a relatively used domain, since they would be paying
> quite a fee (well, $35 may not be much, but if you spend it a lot of times
> without any profit it'd be much) for a potentially useless domain...
No one with any sense pays $35 for domains. You have been able to get them
cheaper for the last three years, after VeriSign's monopoly ended. With a
reseller account from OpenSRS, they start at $10, but I think it goes down
to $7 if you purchase a lot. I seem to remember registrars getting them for
around $3. That could be low, but I seriously doubt it's higher than $5.
> And, eh, how do they know what domains are useful to register and are
> going to exire, or do they have a computer that's running around the
> clock, trying to use "whois" on every imaginable domain name, and records
> the ones that're going to expire?
For starters, you can search them or get a list mailed to you daily:
http://www.directnic.com/features/expireddomains.php
And yes, many people run whois searches on all domains. Though, that is
more useful for contact information. If you have domains with real postal
addresses listed, then you'll recieve various mailings from different
companies regarding them. Recently, VeriSign did this to try to steal
customers from other registrars (their mailings were likely illegal,
according to USPS laws). Spamming contact addresses scraped from whois is
also fairly common. It is possible to get an account and download the root
zone daily from VeriSign. I believe this includes data on when domains
expire, which would be how registrars like directNIC get their information
on expired domains.
> Hmm, perhaps there's a connection between the registrar one uses, and the
> chance it's going to be squatted :-)
This is pure speculation, but if it's VeriSign...
> Also, what are they trying to gain?
Both free hits (advertisement) and the chance to profit from selling the
domain.
> Certainly no all squatters are porn pages, so are they trying to sell the
> domain to the former owner for some ridiculous price? I thought that kind
> of practices where only fruitful last decade?
I would imagine that such things are less successful as they used to be.
Certainly, the rate for web advertising has gone down. Most domain squatter
pages are crappy search engines and the like. I can't recall any specific
ones that are porn sites or advertisements, but there have been cases like
that mentioned before. Putting up a porn page on a domain that had a
previous owner could cause them to pay a lot to get it back, or to start a
lawsuit. Both probably happen on a regular basis.
> Else, they micht be wanting to draw people to see their advertisements,
> but arent'n those people so annoyed that the page they wanted to visit no
> longer exists, that they won't pay attention to the pages.
Advertisement will always attract some people. Since there is always
someone who will buy your product, the more people you can advertise it to,
the better your success rate becomes. The same holds true for the cost of
registering these domains. Even if they only sell a few, they are still
probably making a profit.
> Anyway, perhaps there should be a set price, like $50 for buying a domain
> from another within a few weeks from the squatting.
That's just what we need. More arbitrary, impossible to enforce rules
created by ICANN. A better solution would be to not have a greedy
corporation controlling the root zone.
References: