Fadi Chehade, CEO of ICANN, in a story published by the HuffingtonPost.com, which also contains a video interview with Fadi at World Economic Forum in Davos, explaining how we “went from twenty-something” top domain names to hundreds” throws large domain investors under the bus and then backs up the bus and rolls over them again calling them Cybersquatters.
In respond to a questions regarding “land grabs” in the new domain extension Fadi said:
“The reality is, the more there are names (new gTLD’s), less people will actually be hogging names in order to charge a lot for them.
“Because if somebody took your name on dot X, you can go get another name on dot Y now.”
Fadi then went on to say:
“The new extensions will drive a of to all for a lot of new innovation, which will flourish on a new domain system and will reduced cybersquatting.”
On a personal level as someone who owns lets call it 80,000 domain names, I pay ICANN $.18 for every .com and $.25 for every new gTLD registration.
Lets just say I pay ICANN $15,000 a year for the last 10 years or $150,000 for which I get called a Hog.
We all know that there are domain investors with 300,000 domain names 500K and even 1M domain names guess those are super Hogs.
Bottom line ICANN has taken in a tremendous amount of money off the back of us Hogging up domains.
Second if Fadi take a look at the applicants for those that applied to operate new gTLD’s at registries, he will see that some of the largest applicants for new gTLD’s are the same people that hogged up the domains in .Com.
Actually some of those same people are hogging up the new gTLD’s space as well.
Frank Schilling is one of the largest applicants for new gTLD string but made almost of all this money “hogging” up domains and and then “charge a lot for them”. The same money that he used to hand over to ICANN in application fees and to win private auctions for strings there were more than one applicant for.
Mr. Schilling at last report is the largest registrant of new gTLD domain names and has registered over 85,000 of domain names in his own extension for the purpose of “charging a lot for them”
Radix is also a largest domain company which directly and indirect own a lot of domain names and has made plenty selling services like Logic Boxes to the domain name Hogs. Radix is using a premium registration and renewal pricing structure where domain registrations can hit $5K a year ongoing, which seems “like a lot” of money as well
The Donuts group comes from the domain industry and one of the principal owned and operated the domain name registrar, Enom.com which made a lot of money off those domain name “Hogs” and also using a premium registration and renewal pricing structure where domain registrations can hit thousands if not tens of thousand per domain, again what we think would fall into the “a lot of Money” category.
Daniel Negari who operates the new gTLD with the most number of applications closing in on 777,777 registrations has owned a lot of domain names over the year and then charged a lot for them.
For Fadi apparently not being satisfied with just calling out those who have registered a number of domain names ‘hogging” them he then drops the “C” bomb calling domain investors, cybersquatters.
Fadi them goes on to predict that all of these new extensions will reduce the amount of Cybersquatting, ignoring the facts and numbers which as we have pointed out number administrate hearings (UDRP/URS) involving new gTLD are 15X more than incumbent extensions like .Com, .Net and .Org to name a few.
Finally Fadi fails to note or point out that many new gTLD registries are using annual renewal premium pricing, meaning that if someone “took your name on dot X, you can go get another name on dot Y now” without having to pay the hogs “a lot of money” but might have to pay up to $60,000 a year for a dot X or dot Y domain extension.
There isn’t much of a difference between someone who was hogging up domain name in .com’s to “charge a lot for them” to registries who are charging up to $60,000 a year for a domain name registration and renewal fee.
All and all some pretty ignorant statements in our opinion made by the CEO of ICANN and an insult to those domain investors that are some of the biggest buyer’s of new gTLD’s domain names who have paid ICANN a small fortune over the years allowing them to travel the world, pay millions a year in salary and other benefits.
Its an old expression but still a very valuable one to live your life based on
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Fadi Chehade is an enemy of domainers, and obviously biased for some reason. Maybe someone took a domain he wanted some time ago ?. Anyway he is wrong in what he say. Let us say I own trytythhghgh.com and I have a trademark on trytythhghgh then how can he say they can take some other tld like trytythhghgh.whatever without being what he calls domainers, i.e. cybersquatters ?. By the way this is a derogatory remark for what after all is a legitimate business. Do they call Landlords who own hundreds of houses “housesquatters” ?. No ,they call them landlords. I think myself it is jealousy quite often ,unless someone is registering well known trademarks in which case they deserve the title. Big business hates seeing “poor” domainers owning something that THEY want and they are so tight they do not wish to part with cash. I have a domain that a multi multi millonaires want’s but he is not wanting to pay anything much for it ,and I do not want to sell the domain anyway and have trademarked it to build a business.
Most registrants own far fewer domains than Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Disney, or other companies. Is Google ‘hogging’ Duck.com (which redirects to the Google.com website)? Is Yahoo ‘hogging’ domains that they didn’t sell via that Sedo auction?
Let Fadi publish his tax returns for the years prior to joining ICANN, and let’s compare it to his salary at the so-called “non-profit” ICANN.
The fact is, those living “high on the hog” are the the many ICANN staffers being paid above-market salaries and compensation, far exceeding what comparable non-profits are earning. ICANN uses “for-profit” comparables as their benchmark, rather than non-profit comparables.
Combine that with the ‘revolving door’, where ICANN Staff and Board members set policies, and then later join domain name companies to directly profit from those new policies (e.g. Peter Dengate-Thrush joining Top Level Domain Holdings a month after approving new gTLDs), and it’s very clear that the problem is with the staff/board, not the registrants.
OINK!
@George – “The fact is, those living “high on the hog” are the the many ICANN staffers being paid above-market salaries and compensation, far exceeding what comparable non-profits are earning. ”
Very well said. The hypocrisy of ICANN criticizing domain investors (many of whom also operate internet businesses that employ others) is appalling, but not surprising.
Fadi does not even own FadiChehade .com 😀 How was this bureaucrat allowed to become the most important person on the Internet?
“The reality is, the more there are names (new gTLD’s), the more money I get in my salary pocket.”
One more reason ICANN should not be allowed to turn into a pure corporate entity without real oversight.
Shills like that serve only their masters and themselves. ICANN should be re-organised in some way to prevent these corporate shills to infiltrate such “not-for-profit” organisations.
good to know we have folks like fadi doing all the thinking and reasoning for us – maybe he makes enough off the non-profit that can be a keynote speaker at the us democratic party convention ?
If you add up all of the domains owned by the top 100 domain investors (cybersquatters) I speculate it represents less than 5% of all domains registered. Speculate a little further, if you add up all of the domains owned by the top 5,000 domain investors, it is probably less than 10% of the total domains registered.
Lets remember, Icann is pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars, for the monopolistic control of a product created out of thin air. It is not a manufactured product like a car, house or lamp. It is pure profit.
Furthermore, Icann wants to move to Switzerland so they don’t have to be answerable to anyone. We all know “absolute power corrupts”.
And, Chehade is questioning our ethics???
@Meyer . Are they going to move to WIPO’s office in Switzerland perhaps ?
Excellent article and comments. Thank you.
I didn’t see the exact quotes but if you’ve quoted accurately it could be argued that you’ve taken them slightly out of context.
“Because if somebody took your name on dot X, you can go get another name on dot Y now.”
“The new extensions will drive a of to all for a lot of new innovation, which will flourish on a new domain system and will reduced cybersquatting.”
If someone has taken your name (lets assume this is true business) it is the case that someone is squatting. Even if the name is generic and cybersquatting is not the technically accurate term is there really much difference to a layperson versus “holding on to a name and not using it and asking a lot of money”. It’s really a distinction only domainers makes. I’ve heard domainers call bankers thieves – are they really? I’ve head ICANN be called corporate shills… sticks and stones and pot an kettle are words that come to mind.
As for the rest of the post. It’s very nice. You spend lots of money of which some goes to ICANn therefore you’re the good guy. What do you want? A round of applause? Standing ovation?
I forgot to mention the out the bit that seemed out of context. The quote was “reduced cybersqatting”. He didn’t claim all investors were squatters. He states only that cases of squatting should be reduced – unless your quoting him lost some context not included, of course.
You say that the difference between buying domains for resale and cybersquatting is “really a distinction only domainers make”.
With respect, I would like to disagree forcefully.
First of all, the distinction between investment and squatting matters both factually and ethically. Even if domainers were the only group of people emphasizing this distinction, that doesn’t mean they should stop emphasizing it. It’s a real distinction with real consequences.
Secondly, it’s simply not true that only domainers employ or understand the distinction between domain investment and cybersquatting. When I negotiate with potential buyers, advise non-domainer registrant clients, or discuss what I do for a living with acquaintances and strangers, they respond in various ways. Sometimes I meet some petulant ignoramus who calls me a dirty squatter. Most of the time, the person understands instinctively or else learns very quickly that there is a difference.
And there really is a fundamental difference, which anybody (domainer or not) can see, usually does see, and certainly ought to see:
(A) Someone who owns property without using it is free to sell or not sell it. It’s his antique car sitting idle in the garage. It’s his domain sitting undeveloped. He isn’t a parasite; he’s simply a property owner.
(B) Someone else targets a victim. He buys something that only that victim would want, something he himself doesn’t want, knowing full well that the only reason he is grabbing that property is to hold it hostage and extort a ransom from that particular victim. That’s not the same as owning property that multiple buyers may want or which the owner himself enjoys. That’s squatting.
@Joseph Peterson I like your analogy at “A”. Very coincidentally I used a very similar one the other day to an enquirer who wanted to know how the seller justified the price of a domain he was selling through me. He said that they were only using it for email and thus price was high . I said that if that domai9n owner had a Ferrari worth $1M sitting in his garage and only taken out once or twice a year it does not then make it only worth $10 . I think he “appreciated” this analogy.
In your eagerness to forcefully disagree you have put on some blinkers..
“If someone has taken your name (lets assume this is true business) it is the case that someone is squatting”
If you have a trademarked name and someone has take that name – then it is squatting. The defensive domainer will always resort to the “Apple” is generic argument; however, I’m not looking at exceptions but, as I stated, what would be the general view of the layperson.
The problem with analogies is that they always fail. A domain is not property. A domain is not a Ferrari.
If you look around there are truly generic, truly valuable names. There is inherent value because there are a number of potential suitors – many of them will have related trademark related names but it can be very quickly seen that no one particular has an immediate right to the name.
These names are not what the majority of domainers are peddling.
Some domainers have names that they pick up for resale – how do they determine what is a good name? Google search for businesses and hope you can find some that match on a “generic”. How do they determine pricing? There is no MSRP, no real market price. Value is predicated on how much someone might need the name – if someone has a business the more valuable it becomes.
Some domainers don’t give a rat’s ass and go straight for the jugular. As long as I price less than $1500 it’s less than a UDRP. I can find you oodles of strategies documented on that basis…
An interesting case is GoofOff.com. It’s held by RS who has a nice site on there about RDNH and all the tactics that the owner of “Goof Off” went through to get that domain. The domain, in reality, is worth, in my opinion, not that much. It’s a good blog name, a decent name for a campaign. The value that it holds is to one company and one company alone. RS got to it first. He is not technically Cybersquatting and he’s even using it… though at one point he was generating parking revenue… but he’s got the name hostage.
He’s not owning a Ferrari in his garage because he wants a Ferrari. He’s not even driving the fucking thing. He’s sitting in it naked, middle finger to the wind, laughing at his single suitor because he can. Is he a cybersquatter? Probably not. Is he valuing something well above actual value in an attempt to take advantage of a well known trademark? Of course he is…. is the gap between the two that large that normal people would distinguish between a cybersquatting dick and a regular one?
Do I need to go on and explain why to most people the difference between cybersquatting and investing is meaningless to most people? Just because some names that people have are generic and have value doesn’t excuse all the miscreants operating in this space. Just assume Fadi isn’t talking about awesome superstars of ethics like yourself – and instead of the hundreds of thousands of domainers around the world who aren’t you. One day when you’re bored ask a few Fortune 50 companies how much they annually put aside for defensive domain registrations – I’ve asked one and it was quite eye-popping/jaw dropping and surprising.
To think that there would only be one entity interested in the domain Goofoff.com is naive imo, I think there would certainly be more than one entity interested.
Secondly what the layperson thinks really doesn’t matter when clarifying the meaning of words, plenty of laws a layperson may think are wrong, crazy, off base, doesn’t matter to lawyers, judges and governments.
People want everything for free, what 16 year old kid today believes he should pay for movies, music or porn ? They can easily justify that in their mind too as to why it should be free. So if studio time, raw materials and talent etc… are all meaningless to the layperson should those products be free ?
Words have meaning cybersquatting is not simply the registering and owning a domain that someone else would like and doesn’t like how you are using it.
Hundreds of Thousands of Domainers ? I think that estimation is on the high side, and to be clear are you a cybersquatter ? with the domains you own, is that how you see yourself in this business ?
I think the overall premise was Fadi is a hypocrite, you can disparage someone sure, free to speak your mind, but then don’t take their money, or is being an accessory/benefactor from cybersquatting somehow dignified ?
There may be a number of people interested in GoofOff.com but none to the extent that the owners of the very known TM Goof Off would be. Sure, you could sell it to me for a blog for $100. Maybe someone else wants a silly site and is willing to go all out to $5,000? You think RS is not looking at the company with lawyers and thinking… or I could keep pissing off these fuckers… and wait for the huge pay day. So he’s not a Cybersquatter – fair enough. Let’s make sure he’s just called what he is then…a scumbag? a dick? an investor? a domainer hijacker? a hostage taker ?
I’m not sure why people get so hung up about a word. I tend to think that the intent is more important than the actual accuracy of the word in general but I can see your point. I don’t know that anyone else gets so detail oriented on a word. He called me a administrative assistant.. I’m not an assistant..I’m an executive administrator! I’m not a thief, I’m a banker god dammit!
But the point I made that has been once again lost is that Fadi didn’t label anyone a Cybersquatter incorrectly in the context of the quotes of the original post. The readers and Mr Berkens actually inferred that he is somehow talking about them. It’s a weird domainer persecution complex that exists.
If you watch the video that I did- he uses the Cybersquatting term once. He doesn’t call investors Cybersquatters, he doesn’t call domainers Cybersquatters, he doesn’t mention portfolio size. He says that Cybersquatting will be reduced. It’s his opinion – whether that’s going to be the case or not is another question. I don’t know why people got bent out of shape. You can’t take every instance of someone using the “C” bomb and take it personally It’s a legitimate word with a use and I didn’t see it misused here (did I watch the wrong video)?
What else?
Hundreds of thousands may be on the high side – Namepros currently lists 963,065 members. DNF lists 300,000. Maybe some are defunct and duplicate …. it’s a lot whatever the actual case may be.
Am I a Cybersquatter? Depends on who you ask. I would say that I’m not. I would say that I have skirted a fine line. I haven’t had a UDRP yet. I don’t have a court appearance to my name. I’ve given names away. I’ve sold names. I’ve dropped names. I’ve made bad choices in the past but I’m more understanding now. I would say that I’m better behaved than the vast majority of domainers.
In the end I think the overall premise is flawed. I don’t see ICANN as a accessory or benefactor from cybersquatting. In fact … isn’t you implying that they are leading a somewhat criminal enterprise far more disparaging than your inferring that you are a minor player in it? This whole thing seems like a Sgarrista being mad that the Don said he may have broken a law or two.
Thanks for the reply, I don’t I any way called them a somewhat criminal enterprise, I was very clear if Fadi is calling domain investors Cybersquatters, and cybersquatting is not legitimate, then making money off them makes him a hypocrite.
I do agree with you that there is a very pedantic nature to wording in the business but I think that is because of all the people who label things wrong from outside domaining.
I don’t find myself any player in it to be honest, I have always carried between 100 and 200 domains, no trademarks. So like yourself I don’t see myself as a squatter in any way shape or form.
Ya, so if we want to buy a branded name for ourselves we need to buy 20 extensions? Or we will just have ripoffs buying our domain name on .web and extorting us? I’m torn on this one.
Really interesting to know Because if somebody took your name on dot X, you can go get another name on dot Y now.
Because if somebody took your name on dot X, you can go get another name on dot Y now.