A Biker's Domain

For the last 6 months an upstart in Domain land has been causing a bit of an outcry for ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)to actually take some action to reign in registrar warehousing.

Registrar warehousing is the term Domainers apply to the practice of holding expired domains or catching domain drops for their own accounts instead of making those domains available for the public use again.

The issue has been debated recently on the DomainState forum.

Carlton had this to say.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by stocdoctor
... 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.info Registrar accreditation should require that if you are listed on the Afilias "Register a domain name" page - that your listed registration company have an actual active website for registering domain names. John Doe public thinks he is going to a public registration co. named Alfena, or PocketDomain.com (with no seeming discernible identity), only to land on the site of a competitor listed alongside them called enom. Certainly appears like a misrepresentation to everyday people. It's confusing.

Perhaps these "set-ups" are not illegal, but the participants in these invisible drop-catch mechanisms are operating between the lines. The problem really does begin with ICANN as it is up to them to make a determination as to what registrar accreditation really means and to define clearly for the public what constitutes a true violation. ICANN have an accreditation agreement full of loopholes in which impotent language allows about near anything.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.7.9 Registrar shall abide by any ICANN adopted specifications or policies prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If ICANN are not willing to stand by this, then why inject this statement. Needless ambiguity in a contract! And if catching domains for "private clients" is allowable, then who is insuring that this is actually occurring ... and not just warehousing disguised. ICANN and Afilias bear directly responsibility. One can only deduce that Afilias really doesn't care who their listed registrars are as long as Afilias receive money for the registrar credentials. Am I wrong?