> I've read in one of the web trade magazines that the Internic is in
> such chaos that something like 50% of the domain holders are NOT
> paying their bills. I figure that most of these name squatters are not
> paying the fees. The Internic can't figure out how to deal with
> several million people and they don't dare cancel an account, for
> getting sued. The Internic is a bureaucratic disaster.
AFAIK, the threat of lawsuits isn't what stopped the process of
putting domains on hold for lack of payment. to the contrary, it was
a new breed of squatters that moved in to take advantage of the
NIC's "don't take it out on us" challenging scheme.
under the official rules, once your domain goes on hold, anyone can
challenge it, and it doesn't get reinstated until the challenge is
resolved. by the same token, as soon as your next payment is due,
the domain goes on hold.
this gave rise to a breed of jackals who would query the NIC database,
looking for domains which had just been put on hold, then
automatically file challenges on them. in most cases, the challenge
was filed before the people responsible for the domain had a chance to
read the email saying their bill was due. the squatters didn't want
the domain, they just held it hostage, promising an indefinite
challenge and/or costly legal battle unless the domain owner forked
over an 'expiditing fee'.
by choosing not to act as muscle for the jackals, the NIC effectively
took any hint of strength out of their billing policy. sometimes the
only thing that can fight opportunism is bigger, more feral opportunism.
mike stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 'net geek..
been there, done that, have network, will travel.
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