Saturday, September 30, 2006
It's not so much PocketDomain specifically that domainers are upset about, but more to the idea of what they represent to them. In order to compete in the drop game today for alt extensions, you're going to have to buy in to multiple credentials. As far as .com and .net go, fagedaboudit.
It was clear to me (after setting up intial registrar drop catching programs) that the number of catches were pretty closely tied to the number of threads employed, and much less about coding. Looking at this again 6 months ago, it still appears to bear that out. It's not the numbers of credentials owned, but the number deployed. If Snap, Pool or Enom really choose to deploy their armies of credentials on the few prime infos at stake, I'm quite confident that PocketDomain's take would be pretty much reflected in their number of threads used. It's a small world and pretty easy to guess who the players are in setting stuff up most times.
Some domainers feel that they shouldn't have to jump into the credential race to participate. They are under the wrong impression that the DoC works for them, ICANNT answers to the DoC, the registries to ICANNT and the registrars to the registries. They don't feel that they should have to become a registrar themselves to participate in the domain catching biz or be "heard" or "represented" by ICANNT.
ICANNT has got to love the accredation race, and the way they get to dance around and avoid their own mission statements set up in the public's interest. They are on a quest to accumulate ever increasing independent power, accredation fees and registration taxes. A budget of $33 million this year as a "non-profit" for what?
Instead of creating ANY service value to the general public or domainers, ICANNT spends it's time selling/printing meaningless accredations. They distance themselves (often literally) from addressing any issues or concerns of the public in private meetings behind closed doors. They set up cozy deals with who they consider "stakeholders" like Verisign at the expense of the public/domainers. ICANNT pulls the wool over our eyes by having the registrars agree to abide by rules or policies intended to protect the public/domainers "if adopted". What good does that do us if ICANNT never adopts any of these rules because they aren't introduced by the "stakeholders" (read registrars again)
For example, the policy against warehousing is on the books, but has never been "adopted" by ICANNT. Heck if they adopted something like that it might cut down the accredation fees they get. Why would they want that? For the benefit of the public/domainers? Sure, right!
The whole domain industry self regulation is rife with fraud and corruption. The DoC in their meetings make it clear that they aren't going to step in, because they're getting pressure from the world community to lessen their control. So the DoC sacrifices the public's/domainer's interests in order to keep ahold of the strings. ICANNT knows this and is pushing to take the control over and run da woild privately, as a "Non-profit".
Back to PocketDomain. They merely present a face to the public/domainers of what appeared to be the latest example of the lack of transparency by these registrars and the industry.
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ICANNT "Domain Registrants (read US) are NOT stakeholders and therefor NOT entitled to representation OR consideration." They tax us 25 cents per name. Tell Them "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!"