Something I've wondered... if you publicly say that a domain is for sale and someone has a trademark for it would you automatically lose in arbitration?
Around 1998 I registered a domain. Sony registered a trademark with the same name a few years after that. Someone on a Gmail account asked if he could buy it - I later found out he worked for Sony. I told him no - it's for a game I've been working on. I went on a vacation for a month and when I got back there was a fedex package filled with documents from Sony saying I'm violating their trademark and they'll take the domain.
I got a lawyer and he told me that I shouldn't offer it for sale as that would show the arbitration board that I don't need the domain. But he also told me that in order to fight the trademark it would probably cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. So I could keep the domain but not use it for commerce...
In the end I ended up selling it to Sony but through my lawyer - I never stated it was for sale. But this was early on for domains and I wonder what the process is like now.
They need Georgism for DNS names. You set your own price for your domain. But you have to pay 2-5% of that price annually to keep it.
That way, squatters are incentived to sell it to someone who's going to use it.
asdfman123
> Remove it when the domain is no longer for sale. The convention has no “not for sale” value; absence is the only way to say no.
Since most domains that are for sale don't currently have such a record, it would be wrong to assume they are not for sale. Therefore, absence of such a record does not explicitly mean "not for sale." It's no different from a house: a "for sale" sign in the front yard means it's for sale, but lack of a sign doesn't mean it's not for sale; it could mean the owner doesn't wish to advertise that way, or at all.
kmoser
It’s interesting that domains apparently are still such a big business, despite how browsers have been deemphasizing URLs and domain names, and given the prevalence of apps.
layer8
Yeah cause we really had to improve domain squatters lives.
In my opinion domain squatting should be banned instead.
Anoian
This would have been great for a 2-letter .st domain I had been wanting for years (which appeared to be parked and just redirecting towards ticketmaster or something, with no contact info available). I was bummed about it for a long time, as the .st nic had a sale on 2-letter domains which made me want to pull the trigger, but it got scooped up a day or two prior apparently. I lucked out this year and saw they let it lapse! (I did have a yearly calendar reminder telling me to run whois :)
temp0826
But what about the costs? There are several domains I want. They're just sitting there and no one is doing anything with them. But when I ask to buy them, they ask for outrageous prices (at least in my opinion.) If someone else bought the domain, I would think, "I'm just being outbid." But they never change hands. I've tried telling the owners that I'm their only hope. They just sit there because they have some insane idea for how much it is worth.
xhkkffbf
This was first done by SIDN I believe, the company that orchestrates the .nl domains. They however, do not implement most of the spec.
When searching their online whois[1], they'll tell you if a domain is for sale and link to the for sale page. They don't use any of the info you put in the DNS though. The URL comes from their internal system. You need to register it separately. They also don't use the price, txt or anything else you put in the DNS.
All they use is the "fcod", to look up the url in their own system. They had a different syntax for this before, but this functionality has existed for some years.
comments (10)
Around 1998 I registered a domain. Sony registered a trademark with the same name a few years after that. Someone on a Gmail account asked if he could buy it - I later found out he worked for Sony. I told him no - it's for a game I've been working on. I went on a vacation for a month and when I got back there was a fedex package filled with documents from Sony saying I'm violating their trademark and they'll take the domain.
I got a lawyer and he told me that I shouldn't offer it for sale as that would show the arbitration board that I don't need the domain. But he also told me that in order to fight the trademark it would probably cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. So I could keep the domain but not use it for commerce...
In the end I ended up selling it to Sony but through my lawyer - I never stated it was for sale. But this was early on for domains and I wonder what the process is like now.
comrade1234
Tiberium
That way, squatters are incentived to sell it to someone who's going to use it.
asdfman123
Since most domains that are for sale don't currently have such a record, it would be wrong to assume they are not for sale. Therefore, absence of such a record does not explicitly mean "not for sale." It's no different from a house: a "for sale" sign in the front yard means it's for sale, but lack of a sign doesn't mean it's not for sale; it could mean the owner doesn't wish to advertise that way, or at all.
kmoser
layer8
In my opinion domain squatting should be banned instead.
Anoian
temp0826
xhkkffbf
When searching their online whois[1], they'll tell you if a domain is for sale and link to the for sale page. They don't use any of the info you put in the DNS though. The URL comes from their internal system. You need to register it separately. They also don't use the price, txt or anything else you put in the DNS.
All they use is the "fcod", to look up the url in their own system. They had a different syntax for this before, but this functionality has existed for some years.
[1] https://www.sidn.nl/whois
perino
I appreciate the interesting discussion!
If you’d like to get a better understanding of the concept, have a look here: https://rfc10023.nl
The biggest use case today, at SIDN (the registry for the .nl ccTLD), is described here: https://github.com/SIDN/ForSale-RFC10023/blob/main/examples/...
mdavids