Yes, they've invested in the infrastructure, not the specific name. Sort of like our government (supposedly) has invested in our roads. We don't own the roads, but we pay a licence fee to be able to use them. The money we pay is supposed to also help to keep the roads in good shape, and pay for future expansion into new, developing cities. The roads are controlled by the rules that the government puts in place (and we get to put the government in place). This analogy breaks down too because the government does own the roads I guess, but for the people.
We've both agreed that the user of a domain only leases it, I believe they're not owned by anyone, or at least owned by 'the people/system'. Who would you say owns them? The registry? That would be a scary thought because then they would be able to reneg on the leases or take control back away from the user. We need to have an organisation, a regulating body, such as ICANN that gets to set the rules. We need to be able to vote people into power at this org (and maybe we can, I don't know, I'm still fairly new to the domain reg business). And everyone needs to follow the rules set forward by this organization. As long as there are companies that will do whatever to work around the rules, and aren't punished (ie New.Net), everything breaks down, there is no order. And so everyone will try to get an edge over the others. Unfortuately that means we have to do the same, and since OpenSRS is our representative in this issue, if they come up with a service that helps us do what others are doing, then that's a good thing. So long as we're as fair as we can be. Anyway, at this point we have to wait and see what Scott's offical response will be. Hmm, how's that for timing, Scott's message just popped up. Oh well, sending this anyway since I already typed it. Dave On Fri, 21 Dec 2001, Kris Benson wrote: > Dave Wood wrote: > > > > The problem with your analogy is that in the case of physical real estate, > > there is an owner of the property. With domains, there is no owner. The > > registry is not the owner of the domain, and thus can't sell it. In the > > real world, the property owner makes an investment in that property in > > time, money and work. That's the job of the leasee of a domain name, not > > the registry, so the leasee has the right to sell it, or rent space (via > > advertising or whatever). > > So you're saying that domains have no owner. That's an interesting > concept -- how can you control who runs the system then? If they are no > more or less mine than yours, why can't I use activeeffects.com as my > domain too? > > VGRS, ICANN and all individuals who have contributed to Internet network > infrastructure have made a significant investment of time, money and work. > > Remember, the leasee of the domain has no rights beyond what a tenant in a > building would have. They can sublet, they can sell the contract. But, > they cannot sell the actual domain. > > If domains were owned by the registrants, there wouldn't be an annual fee > for them. > > -kb > -- > Kris Benson > ABC Communications > +1 (250)612-5270 x14 > +1 (888)235-1174 x14 >
