Re: [ga] Redemption Grace Periods for Deleted Names

[Gary Osbourne <gro@direct.ca>]

At 09:33 AM 02/08/02 +0100, Jon Lawrence wrote:

>Which would be a fair assumption if, and only if,
>the WLS was set up such that the registrar that
>had the name originally would also get the name
>if deleted and re-registered to the WLS subscriber.

I'm unclear as to what you are saying. What I am
saying is that if the name doesn't expire at all,
then the current registrant continues to pay for
it and the VeriSign registry makes approximately
$6. If OTOH it expires and there is a WLS on it,
then VeriSign registry makes $6+. Now VeriSign
registry makes that money whether it expires or
not, but if good names don't expire there is no
market.

See Ben Edelman's Tina's Free Live Webcam study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/renewals/

And there are numerous other examples he doesn't
cite. Picking up a dropped name that has never
been used isn't what these folks are doing. They
want names which already had functional websites.

Now sure some folks can walk away from their
functional sites intentionally and let the name
drop. A Christian rock band in my area, Vancouver,
Canada, did just that after they disbanded. They
then find out that it has been picked up and is
being used as a porn site. The prior owner says
if he knew that was going to happen, he never
would have let the name drop. I suspect this
would be true of many who just walk away from
a name. But if they did know and did renew then
that lessens the pool of dropping names. Better
to keep them in the dark.

And sure some folks can mess up and not renew
their name through their own error, and it is
hard to work up much sympathy for them. But
as has been pointed out, was the error entirely
their fault or could the registrar/registry
have been more helpful? Well, we're talking
about VeriSign here, who sent out deceptive
notices regarding domain name renewals to
registrants who weren't even their own
customers, including false renewal dates.
Who was that designed and intended to be
helpful for, VeriSign or the consumer? Yet
we are supposed to believe that in this
instance VeriSign will act ethically. I
don't buy it. -g

> >-- Original Message --
> >Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2002 00:30:43 -0700
> >To: Marc Schneiders <marc@fuchsia.bijt.net>
> >From: Gary Osbourne <gro@direct.ca>
> >Subject: Re: [ga] Redemption Grace Periods for Deleted Names
> >Cc: ga@dnso.org
> >
> >
> >At 11:34 PM 01/08/02 +0200, Marc Schneiders wrote:
> >
> >>Assuming that they are good businessmen and therefore
> >>trying to keep their customers, it is very unlikely that
> >>registrars make it hard for people to renew their domains.
> >
> >That is assuming that the renewal fee is the same if it is
> >the original registrant or someone else. If the renewal fee
> >is higher for a new registrant (as is likely to happen with
> >WLS), then there is a built in incentive to be less than
> >helpful to the original registrant. It is normally a Very
> >Good Thing to keep your existing customers, but if new ones
> >pay better, though only if you jettison the current ones,
> >well, screw the current customer. I gotta make a living. -g
> >
> >
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