ICANN announced this week, the opening of the comment period for the “Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery Working Group”, seeking opinions certain matters from the registrant point of view, but failed to follow its own staff recommendation that it should address warehousing by registrars.
What ICANN called for comments on this week were:
“””Whether adequate opportunity exists for registrants to redeem their expired domain names;
Whether expiration-related provisions in typical registration agreements are clear and conspicuous enough;
Whether adequate notice exists to alert registrants of upcoming expiration’s;
Whether additional measures need to be implemented to indicate that once a domain name enters the Auto-Renew Grace Period, it has expired (e.g., hold status, a notice on the site with a link to information on how to renew, or other options to be determined);
Whether to allow the transfer of a domain name during the Redemption Grace Period (RGP).””””
However for me the big news isn’t what ICANN is asking for opinions on, but what it seemingly missed in this discussion, which is what should a registrar do with an expired domain.
We have long talked about the mess that ICANN has allowed to occur with expired domains, by not setting any policy whatsoever as to what registrars should do with an expired domain.
Many registrars drop them exclusively to an auction service like NameJet.com, or SnapNames.com, where expired domains are auctioned off to the high bidder with the registrar sharing in the revenue generated by the expired domain sale.
Godaddy.com has its own auction site where it auctions off its customers expired domains and keeps the revenue generated by the sales.
Other registrars simply keep the domain for themselves or sell them as premium domains through their own site.
Other registrars simply let the domain expire and drop back into the pool of available domains.
“A total of 29 distinct submissions were received”…..Eighteen of the comments solely expressed objections to registrars “warehousing” domain names upon expiration and made no other observations or comments about proposed changes to the RAA”
Our comments were one of these 18.
They went on to conclude in that report that “warehousing should be addressed”.
However, in the 10 months that has passed, since ICANN’s own staff recommended that “Warehousing should be addressed”, it has not.
This comment period and review of the “Expired Domain Policy” would seem the perfect time for ICANN to finally review this wild, wild west situation it has allowed and finally pass uniform rules on what registrars should and should not be allowed to do with its customers expired domains, but despite the fact that they promised they would review the issue, they missed this prime opportunity to do so.
Will it ever change? I just don’t know what to do about ICANN anymore.
And, the ICA does not answer emails so I never signed up and donated.
I’m losing enthusiasm with both quickly again.
Great post. This issue has been raised over and over, and has been around for a long time. It’s been stated a number of times, for justifiable reasons, that ICANN choose to deal with only those issues that they can easily deflect. The real substantive concerns often go ignored, trivialized, or just swept under the rug.
Rod Beckstrom could revitalize ICANN and reorient the organization if they would only make a sincere effort to survey stakeholders. This is what I have meant by “ICANN are elitist”, in that they don’t seem to really care what others think despite the public comments forum, etc.
@Johnny – Myself, I procrastinated in renewing my ICA membership, but then did renew it and am glad that I did. The organization has represented domainers well in several instances, and I have faith that they are not done working to protect all our interests. Please let me add to the chorus that domainers need to ban together, to watch out for and support one another. There is more negative sentiment toward our industry & business interests than I previously knew about. So organizations like the ICA are worthwhile in my view. I’m sure if they were better funded, then email responses would be somewhat more prompt.
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Ted…
Hi! I’m on that working group and I’d encourage you and all others to raise that issue in your comments. I don’t have the sense that warehousing is off the table.
One of the tricky bits is that registrars consider their back-end processes a part of the “secret sauce” that they use to differentiate themselves from other registrars. So marching in demanding explicit descriptions of what their internal processes are generally hits a brick wall. That said, their reps on the working group are not opposed to improving the situation.
So we need good comments, with good ideas on how to fix this in a way that doesn’t break the business model of the registrars.
Mike
Thanks for coming forward here.
I think in light of many previous comments received by ICANN on this issue back last year, as I discussed in my post, the issue should be one of those included on the front burner this working group and stated as such.
Being in the business for as long as I have, there was a time in this decade, where all registrars simply dropped expired domains, the domains became available to be registered by the first person to do so. This resulted in services like snapnames.com and pool.com which came forward, utilizing the tags of various registrars, which shared in the proceeds of the sales of domain caught by those services.
However in the sense of fair business practices, everyone was free to, and had an extremely small, chance to register the domain for registration costs only, through other registrars not affiliated with Snap or Pool.
This may not have been as profitable for some registrars as the current system, but it is ICANN’s duty to maximize registrars profitability or to regulate a system in a manner far to registrants, registries and registrars?
I understand you don’t want registrars to go out of business but many were in business and highly profitable before they engaged in current practices.
Just to be clear, although ICANN agreement with its registrars, during this period always said:
“”””Registrars shall abide by any ICANN adopted specifications or policies prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.””””
But ICANN never “adopted specifications or policies” in regards to registrars warehousing domains, which is quite strange for a regulatory agency.
So the current situation has not been around forever, and has just developed over the last few years, as registrars started to take advantage of the lack of regulation in this area.
Now due to inaction, ICANN has allowed a monopolistic situation where is you want a domain that NetSol has registered you have to go to namejet.com commit to a $69 fee, and if the domain is decent, wind up in an auction for it.
Far worse is that some registrars like Tucows.com simply hand pick the expired domains of its customers that they want and just keep the domain, without having to offer it to the market, and then sells the best of these domains on its own site yummynames.com
Tucows has a reported portfolio of over 250,000 domains, a large portion of which appears to be domains it just got from its customers when they expired.
Again this is very smart and profitable for Tucows, but what if all registrars decided to do this? (which is their current right). There would never be any domain that would ever become available to the general public again except for super premium prices through a registrar’s reseller service.
Finally if you “need good comments with good ideas on how to fix this”, you need to at least ask for comments.
The committee should republish and repost its mission and specifically state that the issue of warehousing is on the table and ask the public for comments about it, fulfilling the staff recommendations of last October.
a couple things that may help here. first, it is not “ICANN” raising this issue. it is the ALAC (at-large advisory committee) inside of ICANN raising this issues in the GNSO (generic names supporting organization).
they are concerned with the rights of regular registrants, not professionals (that is not a judgment but an observation). they are concerned with transparency in grace periods, honoring grace periods, clear notice and other items that lead to ordinary registrants losing their names. they do not care who owns them afterward.
the warehousing issue is, for better or worse, a very separate issue to them. I am not trying to discourage participation in the process but rather to help make it more effective.
whether you guys believe it or not, I would love to see professionals be much more effective in their participation in ICANN. sadly, when I read things like “This issue has been raised over and over, and has been around for a long time” it makes me realize how hard this is.
commenting on a blog post is not “raising” the issue inside of ICANN. effective participation means doing what george krikos does, educating himself on the issues and participating in every online way possible. I can tell you from the inside that george has impact.
saying “oh this sucks. ICANN are idiots” is, to me, simply a rationalization for doing nothing. please don’t fall in to that trap. it hurts us all.
oh, and the ICA does a great job for professional domain owners.
@Elliot – I do apologize for my caustic tone. However, that ICANN have not been made aware that registrar warehousing is an issue seems to me quite disingenuous. As a reasonable starting point, MHB’s response above (actually the fifth comment) is the perfect short summary of why the warehousing issue is important. It seems self-evident that registrar warehousing of domains is a conflict of interest that ICANN could recognize without having it drawn to their attention.
That the below ever existed in the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement is proof enough of ICANN’s awareness of the potential for conflict of interest issues …
“Registrars shall abide by any ICANN adopted specifications or policies prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars.”
Now does seem the opportune time to have that conversation with the public.
I’d like to second Elliot’s comments. I’m just a domain owner, not your representative. I’m participating in ICANN because I think it’s useful for my own personal reasons and warehousing isn’t a big deal for me (I don’t buy domains). Elliot’s right — the working group was initiated by the ALAC with a different focus. That doesn’t mean warehousing’s off the table, but it does mean that it probably won’t get a lot of attention unless there are some well-crafted comments with good suggestions on how to proceed.
Here’s a link to a PDF of Rob Hall’s presentation during the kick-off session for the working group at the last ICANN meeting. Check out the last few pages starting at page 14 — he’s describing the current state of affairs and his most telling point for this discussion is that the “secondary market is now the primary market.”
http://is.gd/2wtkR
And here’s a link to Alan Greenberg’s presentation to the same meeting (he’s the ALAC person who’s taken the lead on raising the issue). His minimum outcomes are “restoration of predictable and reasonable domain name recovery” and “guaranteed email security.”
http://is.gd/2wtxT
The main point that Elliot made, which I want to amplify, is that ICANN is not closed. You can join the Business Constituency — and write off trips to exotic places, participate in working groups, directly influence the outcome. You can write comments — which, if well-crafted, often find their way into recommendations. You can support the ICA and Phil Corwin’s efforts (he’s on this working group too). All sorts of good things to do.
Mike
I certainly do not think your my representative.
“You can write comments — which, if well-crafted, often find their way into recommendations. ”
That is exactly what I did when ICANN opened up comment period when the registrars contracts were up for renewal.
As noted in the report prepared by ICANN own staff, the warehousing issue should be addressed.
That was last October.
The committee you are on, is looking into expired domain policy, but doesn’t want to address the warehousing issue, since to the registrars it’s there “secret sauce”.
This is why domain holders and congress have such a difficult time understanding the way ICANN operates
This is starting to fall into the “let no good deed go unpunished” category.
Whatever…
I think we’re all equally baffled how this can continue unresolved at ICANN. But what is perhaps twice as perplexing is the statement:
“A total of 29 distinct submissions were received…..Eighteen of the comments solely expressed objections to registrars “warehousing” domain names upon expiration… Our comments were one of these 18.”
And my comments were one of the 18 as well. http://forum.icann.org/lists/raa-consultation/msg00058.html
Does anyone actually even bother to respond to ICANN anymore? It seems like the respondents are some eliteist bunch who can be easily dismissed. How it is that the whole entire planet doesn’t get up and react wildly to “business as usual” in regard to expired names is beyond me.
Hopefully, some of our recent efforts to promote domains, domaining, and well-written and informative blogs like this one will finally have some impact and maybe get some more respondents on board.
I don’t even care what their opinions are, as long as they have them and express them!
As ICA Counsel, ICA’s representative in the ICANN Business Constituency, and a member of the PEDNR Working Group (along with two other ICA-affiliated individuals), perhaps I can shed a little light on what often seems to be an inscrutable and inexplicable ICANN working process (even for those of us who are engaged with it).
The current Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery (PEDNR) Working Group (WG) was formed as a result of a request submitted by ICANN’s At-Large Advisory Council (ALAC), which is supposed to represent non-professional (that is, non-domainer) individual registrants. ALAC’s major concern seems to be whether registrants receive adequate notice that their domains are coming up for renewal or expiration, adequate opportunity to renew them before they expire, and adequate opportunity to retrieve them during the post-expiration grace period. It is ALAC that requested the initiation of a policy development process (PDP) on these questions as well as defined the scope of the requested PDP; ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), its internal policymaking group, subsequently signed off and authorized the creation of the WG – further background can be found at https://st.icann.org/post-expiration-dn-recovery-wg/index.cgi. While members of the Registrar Constituency (RC) are participating in the WG the RC did not propose this WG nor did they limit its scope to exclude the issue of registrar warehousing of domains, whether originally purchased for their own account or acquired from customers who let domains expire.
One year ago ICA did file an extensive comment on proposed amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, which is available at http://forum.icann.org/lists/raa-consultation/msg00067.html . We largely confined these comments to the proposed changes to the RAA which were designed to strengthen that document and provide new protections to registrants to prevent a repetition of the RegisterFly fiasco (and, as noted, there is no need to amend the RAA to address registrar warehousing – there is already a placeholder provision in it that requires them to comply with any ICANN policy on the subject, but ICANN has never adopted any such policy). These proposed amendments were subsequently adopted and are now in effect at most major registrars; they will be in force at all registrars as their accreditation agreements with ICANN come up for renewal.
ICA is also currently participating in another WG that is looking at further changes to the RAA. It has two separate tasks – a short-term compilation of existing registrant rights and responsibilities under the current RAA (essentially, a registrant Bill of Rights), and longer-term consideration of whether additional amendments should be proposed to the RAA to provide additional registrant protections. It is not clear to me whether warehousing could be within the scope of that WG because, as already noted, the RAA doesn’t need to be amended on that point.
Given that ICANN has never had a policy on registrar warehousing, and that some registrars now have large portfolios of their own, any future ICANN policy on the subject would have to deal with that reality. As for an ICA position on registrar warehousing, I’m sure we have a broad diversity of viewpoints on that subject (given that our membership consists of businesses that include third party registrar services as well as domainers who own their own accredited registrars to handle their own registrations and renewals) and I don’t know whether we could reach a consensus position or what it would be should we hear from members that this is an issue they’d like us to look into.
I hope those comments are useful in clarifying ICANN’s internal process and the role that ICA has played and is playing within it.
It is a fairly simple process to bring a policy proposal to ICANN’s GNSO for consideration. I speak with some experience as it was my proposal on Redemption Grace Period policy that made it’s way through the channels and ultimately became the “Expired Domain Policy Review”– a copy of the original proposal is at
https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?redemption_grace_period_danny_younger
Step 1. Join the North American Regional At-Large Organization (NARALO) as an individual… there is no membership fee involved, just a signup at
http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss_atlarge-lists.icann.org
Step 2. Write a brief proposal and submit it for discussion. An example:
Proposed: Both the 21 May 2009 and the 17 May 2001 Registrar Accreditiation Agreements allow for new and revised specifications and policies on the topic “prohibitions on warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registries or registrars” (section 4.2.5). It is the view of the members of the NARALO that the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) should invoke the provisions of Annex A.1.c of the ICANN bylaws to thereby commence a policy development process within the GNSO with the aim of prohibiting registrar warehousing and speculation in domain names. [State your supporting rationale].
Step 3. Convince the NARALO that it should (a) take up this matter at its monthly meeting; (b) vote/approve and pass this initiative onto the ALAC.
Step 4. Lobby the ALAC members to ensure passage of the proposal at their next monthly meeting.
Step 5. After the GNSO agrees to take up the issue, volunteer to join the GNSO working group that will examine the matter.
I think the reason that it’s not addressed is that only a tiny minority of registrants have ever be affected in a meaningful way by this, (because registrars are giving reasonable amount of notice.) This means that most people don’t care much about this issue.
I myself would roll this up into the greater issue of domain warehousing (domain hoarding.) The damage done to the advancement and exchange of free ideas, markets and societies by hoarding domains like tradable commodities far outweighs any benefits! Why does ICANN feel an obligation to create another lawless land for asset speculators, haven’t they caused enough problems?
But until the international community decides that domain names are a critical public asset, which should be there for the benefit of everyone, instead of disproportionately benefitting the few who take advantage of the regulatory void, we will continue to stifle the creativity and exchange that the internet should be based on!
BTW on the registrar warehousing issue; the one big difference that makes it an obvious defrauding of the public interest, is that allowing registrars to benefit more from an account expiring than from renewing will ALWAYS make them look for ways to make it happen. No matter what rules you put in place, this is a conflict of interest that encourages large powerful registrars to act counter to the interests of small registrants!
While it’s of dubious societal value to allow anyone to profit from the sale of domain names, it’s clear that registrars should not be allowed to! They are in a position of privileged access to information and resources, they ARE the domain insiders. To allow them to benefit from the sale of commoditized domain names is to allow insider trading of this important public resource!
The reason it’s not reasonable or fair to hoard and trade domain names like treasure is two-fold. The 1st is purely moral; the namespace is a great public resource, because the internet is supposed to be the great equalizer. A place where little guys can start something special and have it succeed to the benefit of the world, but domain name traders stand in the way of progress by adding exponentially higher costs to domain names and making them hard to obtain. Imagine if the world-changing search engine couldn’t afford a short simple name and instead had to be called… “ReallyGoodSearchEngine.biz”.
It’s unlikely their superior search would have ever gained popularity and it would have taken many years for that advancement to be replicated by their slow-moving corporate competitors.
The other problem is, there’s no basis in this asset! Especially when “tasting” was allowed, but even still after, domain names are registered for what amounts to FREE! When you look at other tradable commodities, the one thing that makes it all fair, is that the costs of buying and owning an asset are real and significant! Real property has annual taxes, and other commodities were had to be bought at competitive market rates, but not domain names. Domain names are sold en masse by a privileged few to an elite group of asset holders for a tiny fraction of their eventual market price.
The public should benefit from the value of domain names, not the privileged few. To do that, we should use the warehousers own valuation systems to determine the market value of a domain name, then charge the registrant 10% of that every year!
You could make it really only affect those hoarding domains in bad faith or just plain holding on to too many by offering a limited exemption. For example, an individual could own up to 5 domains and only pay current registration fees. Corporations could own up to 25 (with full exemption.) Finally anyone caught using shell companies or a “straw man” to hold addtional domains would immediately pay their missing fees plus a 200% domain value penalty or lose them.
This system would still be nearly free for productive use of domain names, but would finally attach very real costs to domain name speculating.
Aaron
“”there’s no basis in this asset!””
That was a LONG time ago that you could get a domain for no or little costs.
Many of the large domain holders have spend MILLIONS even tens of MILLIONS to acquire the assets they own, believe me I have basis in the domains we own.
There is a huge cost to domain speculating and you can lose plenty of money doing it
Dear Sirs,
As a business owner I find the unregulated confict of interest issues among some Registrars and the total disregard of the Registrant as unbelievable.
I had my business domains registered through a reseller, of course with the professional looking templates available to him and being busy looking after my own business and customers I never had reason to know there was a difference between a reseller and a registrar.
The Reseller went through a stage of very bad health (it can happen to humans),
having failed to get replies to my emails regarding the renewal of the domains I sought the advice of a professional web site builder.
He was able to tell me who the real Registrar was (hint: cowboys and Indians), I tried to contact them directly to renew my domains but the emails were ignored.
My advisor suggested requesting the domains be transferred using the services of one of the (claimed) largest registrars in the USA who is also an affiliate of the original Registrar.
Of course they took my money to transfer the domains which were still well inside the sixty day redemption period but nothing was happening except my domains were then showing an advertising page for the very registrar I had paid to transfer them into a safe account where I could use them once again.
I manged to contact a gentleman on one of the few email addresses listed on the ICANN web site, in fairness he replied both by email and telephone.
The result was I now could get replies from the original Registrar but nothing positive or helpful just the bare minimum to be able to say they replied to my emails.
Having made the connection between the original registrar and the one I was trusting (and paid) to carry out the transfer I was sending duplicate emails begging for help which was not forthcoming because I could access the Resellers account.
On day 60 the registrar sent me the document that would allow the domains to be transferred back to my care, the amount of paperwork and the manner I had to reply was nothing short of obstructing any chance of progress.
Of course on day 61 they reduced the amount of paper work to one page and easy to establish proof of identity.
The two .com domains had been sold by the registrars internal auction system for a substantial sum of money at one minute passed the 60 day redemption period !!!!
The Registrars have made it clear to me that I will not get my domains back, ICANN are playing the role the three brass monkeys (blind, deaf and dumb).
I believe this amounts to nothing less than Insider Trading and abuse of the status and role of a Regstrar.
The Reseller is not responsible to anyone, he / she has no contact or contract with ICANN, yet they are allowed to register domain names that so many businesses depend on to trade.
Sorry but the www is too big and too important to the world economy to be left in the control of the Elite known as ICANN and it’s Registrars.
Edit :
Above should read :
Having made the connection between the original registrar and the one I was trusting (and paid) to carry out the transfer I was sending duplicate emails begging for help which was not forthcoming because I could Not access the Resellers account.
Peter, I’m sorry to hear about your horror story.
Since, you were not knowledgeable about the in’s and out’s of the industry, you trusted the registrar that wanted to profit from you and the web-designer.
I know it is too late now but I would have told you to contact one of the IP lawyers. I’m mentioning it so if somoeone else experiences this, they know where to turn.
Peter
Also Godaddy has a redemption period AFTER the auction for which 7 days even after the sale as the original registrant you have a right to get your domain back for normal renewal fees.
Having said that we have often discussed the inherent conflict of interest that allows registrars to sell off or even keep the domains of its former customers but ICANN is the organization that has allowed it to happen and has refused to issues rules to regulate the situation
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your helpful posts, I sincerely hope some business owner stumbles across this and learns how vulnerable their business can be if it relys on a good domain name.
Living in Ireland I am not likely to employ a Lawyer in the USA, to be honest I would not know where to begin the process as I believe the Lawyer / Client relationship is built on trust.
I found getting information on the ICANN web site akin to pulling teeth and certainly agree a Lawyer who specialises in internet Law is what I needed.
I did not receive a renewal notice which I understand is one of the ICANN rules, Wild West Domains / Go Daddy claim it is not their responsibility because my contract was with the Reseller.
My definition of a Reseller is they are agents, representatives or a sub office of the Registrar, of course hind sight is 20/20 vision the Reseller is an unregulated Registrar and all for $69.00
Yes borrow Dad’s credit card, be the budding business man he will be proud of for starting your own business after all the Registrar gives you the templates for your professional web site, Mom is happy you are not playing computer games all day and if you get bored or have exams coming up you can leave the computer especially the hot summer months.
OK my Reseller was not a teenager he was a one man show making a little extra money and he did provide a good service for ten years, being human without any back up in place should never be allowed by the Registrar.
In my case the Registrar profited from his agents poor health and the fact that ICANN do not have rules for every situation.
I sent a further email of surprise to the ICANN representative immediatley I discovered my domains had been sold.
At No Time did he or the Registrar mention the 7 day rule !
old domainer is correct a Lawyer is needed for any such dispute because the customer must be able to tell the Registrar and ICANN what the rules are.
Maybe others will be lucky enough to be able to call on the advice of MHB and old domainer.
Thank you Gentlemen.