What about the customers who don't mean to let their domain name expire, but because they didn't keep their contact information up to date it happens. Someday they discover the domain name is no longer theirs. In this case, they are inevitably upset and want answers. I would much rather tell them their domain name was deleted according to stated policy, was available to the general public (albeit maybe for less than one second), and was registered by someone else than to tell them that, gee, it didn't look like you were going to renew, and we thought your name was valuable, so instead of deleting it we took it and sold it. It's really all about perception, and not getting a reputation as money-grubbing scum.
Sometimes, in the interest of integrity, money must be left on the table. As OpenSRS has gained market share, and the number of registrations has grown into the millions, the "loss" represented by un-renewed domains must begin to look very large. It would be easy to view expired domain names as assets, and to see a need to find a way to prevent the "loss" of the assets. In my opinion, this view is an illusion. There is no loss. OpenSRS does not sell domain names, it provides registration services. If a registrant does not pay for a second year of the services, for whatever reason, the domain name does not become the property of OpenSRS, to be re-sold or otherwise exploited. It ceases to exist, until the next registrant creates it once again. Even Verisign has made a distinction between domain names for which registration fees were once paid, then expired and those for which registration fees were never paid. I did not have too much difficulty accepting their decision to auction the latter to try to recoup the unpaid registration fees. But they have no legitimate right to sell the former. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis Hisey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 6:19 PM Subject: Re: Tucows expired names (was: Re: maxi.org -- an example of the "new" deletion procedure) > > > > I do see this as practice as wrong. The customer registers the name > > with the understanding of how the process works, and domains are to be > > deleted normally. They are not to be put on the auction block after > > expiration during a grace period that exists NOT TO BENEFIT the > > registrar in having time to sell the name to a third party, but to > > provide a period of time to collect the renewal fee from the > > REGISTRANT. If registrants were aware that their Registrar was going > > to engage in such practices with their domains once they let them > > expire, they would probably register with someone else. > > > > I'd really like to know the percentage of customers who: > > 1) Know what happens to a domain name when it expires. > > 2) Care what happens to a domain when it expires. > > 3) Bought the domain name from somebody based on what was going to happen to > it after they no longer wanted it. > > Thank-you.... > > > >
