I've decided I don't really care what happens with regard to expired domain names. Not because it doesn't affect me personally, not because I don't care about my customers, and not because I don't like to make a buck. The reason I don't care is that I think the status quo is appalling, and I have yet to hear of an alternative that addresses the problems without compromising some aspect of the process.
> I still don't quite understand what Tucows is saying, unfortunately. That's because they have announced a better mousetrap without bothering to show it to us. > ... I simply don't believe Tucows can make any change to the > registrant agreement that gives them any power over the domain > name without the explicit consent of the registrant... It's fine to deny registrars the ability to do anything to infringe the precious rights of the registrant, but the reality of what happens to domain names when they expire means that tying the registrars' hands hasn't really bought us anything. > ... Any such change would violate the EDDP. Registrars can't do > anything with a domain name if the name holder disappears and > does not respond to renewal notices; all they can do is delete > them. The EDDP makes this quite clear. Since we haven't seen the details of the Tucows plan, we don't know if it will violate the EDDP (which has not officially taken effect, as of yet). It may kick in at the end of the redemption period. It may involve changes at the registry level. We don't know who is aware of it, or who has agreed to what changes. Maybe everything will change. > Domain names are a public resource licensed to a registrant; Tucows > just processes the transaction. If a Tucows-sponsored domain name > expires and the registrant does not respond to any notices asking > if the registrant wants to renew it, or auction it, or whatever, > Tucows *must* delete it and return it to "the public"; Tucows has > no more right to make extra money off that domain than GoDaddy, > VeriSign, me, or the Pope. I disagree. I think Tucows does have a bit more right than the Pope... The fact is that when a domain name of value (and I define a domain name of value as one that someone will bid on if it is auctioned, or will register if it drops) expires and is deleted, it is going to be immediately registered by someone who registers expiring domain names professionally. The odds are very good that it will be registered at one of a large number of registrars who sought and received their accreditation specifically for the purpose of registering deleted domain names, with no apparent intention of operating as a traditional registrar. Basically they paid off ICANN for the right to grab domain names previously registered at "real" registrars, as they are deleted. ICANN gets paid, the sham registrar gets paid, the registry gets paid, and most likely a domain catching service gets paid. Who gets nothing? The previous registrant and the previous registrar get nothing. It's easy to see the motivation behind NSI's new plan, and Tucows' new mystery plan. These large registrars are tired of losing business to these new entities. You can talk about consensus agreements, technicalities, opt-in, opt-out, whatever. The bottom line is that a registrant that fails to renew a valuable domain name is going to lose it, and the "public" that owns the "public resource" you speak of will have no chance at obtaining it without paying through the nose for it, and all that's left for us to do is to argue about who gets the money.
