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Discussion on: Selling an unused domain for profit

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adi profile image
Adi Sk

Hi James, I agree with what you say but I have mixed opinions about this.

Reselling domain will continue as long as people are willing to offer huge sums of money. The price of domain is valued by how similar domains have been sold in the past. The prices will continue to increase just like the housing bubble, things will be back to normal when the bubble bursts.

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turnerj profile image
James Turner

Domain flipping/squatting is very much like ticket scalping, it forces the price to go higher and for people to miss out because of timing, not because someone actually wanted/need the domain/ticket. This leads it to only the wealthy being able to afford it.

Unfortunately in terms of a bubble, I don't see a future where it bursts without regulation. ICANN and maintainers of TLDs need to allow the ability to "report" domains that are owned for the sole purpose of reselling after which go through a review process where ownership may be rescinded.

If the reselling of domains should remain allowed, it should be price capped to prevent the ability to profiteer on a mass scale - say 5-10x the yearly cost of the domain for that specific TLD, none of this thousands or millions of dollars.

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gustvandewal profile image
Gust van de Wal

Being able to report a domainname wouldn't work at all. Resellers would just put some arbitrary nonsense site up and claim it has a purpose, while also having huge "THIS DOMAIN IS FOR SALE" banners everywhere.

The pricecap is a good idea, though. If you ask me, the price should be capped to about 10 times the yearly cost and it should be illegal to make other payments for the domain beyond the official cap.

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turnerj profile image
James Turner

With your example of reporting not working - I would still see it work because a human on the other end would see said banners and use that itself as cause for termination. Even with that taken into account however, it does still have flaws because someone would still try to circumvent it any which way (eg. hide the banners depending on IP address, only post about the sale on the darknet etc).

With the price cap, yeah, I could get behind a price that is 10x of the yearly cost of a domain and it definitely should be illegal for "additional" payments. Probably if this was the approach to go, there should be official brokers (ones backed by the TLD registrar or ICANN themselves) which handle the transaction to prevent any funny business.