[registrars] Verisign ownes every name that does not exist - millions for free!

[Jim Archer]

Hi Paul...

My guess is that their intent is primarily to get paid for clicks and such. 
At one time, I had a customer who used to register "typo" domains.  We are 
all familiar with that concept, but for those reading this who are not, he 
might register something like wwwIbm.com or wwwSunmicrosystems.com and so 
on.  Many companies would threaten to sue him and send him cease orders and 
such, usually based upon trademark infringement claims.  I wonder if these 
same companies are going to be any happier if Verisign is doing it?

Also, it seems that if a name resolves, then it should be registered.  Or, 
if it resolves, then it is registered. Or maybe it is kind of registered. 
Half registered? In this case, it is registered with no registrar, no whois 
data and no one paying for it.

I do know that if we delete too many names during the 5 day grace period 
that follows registration, we get a nasty note from Verisign telling us we 
are not supposed to do that so much.  So they can't really say that the 
name is instantly registered then deleted each time it resolves.

As you said, never a dull day...

Jim


--On Monday, September 15, 2003 9:01 PM -0400 Paul Goldstone 
<paulg at domainit.com> wrote:

> Jim and all,
>
> I don't believe that unresolved domain traffic belongs to Verisign, any
> more than 404 file not found pages belong to them.  They own
> *.verisign.com, not *.com
>
> Besides, if they get this to pass, are they acting as Registry, Registrar,
> both, or neither?  Only the Registry can capture unresolved traffic so it
> must be the Registry.  If that's the case, they should only be permitted
> to solicit the Registry and/or accredited Registrar services for com and
> net, showing no favour to any one individual Registrar (such as Network
> Solutions).  I'm not sure if that's their intention:
>
> http://www.crmassist.com/news/dispnews.asp?i=100935&t=99
> "VeriSign spokesman Brian O'Shaughnessy confirmed that the company was
> testing a system to redirect bad Internet addresses to its own search
> page, but he said no final decision has been made on whether to implement
> such a program."
>
> Never a dull day...
>
> Paul Goldstone
> Domain-it!, Inc.
> www.domainit.com
>
>
> At 08:10 PM 9/15/2003 -0400, Jim Archer wrote:
>> Clever Verisign.  I suppose you could only do this if you are the
>> monopoly  that controls the root zone, although I have not figured out
>> exactly how  they do it yet.  I'm sure it will be clear as soon as we
>> look into it.
>>
>> But really, Verisign is essentially using every name that does not
>> exist,  thereby making it exist, kind of sort of.  Can they do this?  I
>> would have  thought that even Verisign has to pay for their domain
>> names.  With this  thing in place, they are essentially getting millions
>> of domains for free.
>>
>> And, since many unsophisticated users often use a web browser to see if
>> a  domain is available, NSI gets a huge advantage if Verisign decides to
>> link  them to register the domain.
>>
>> I sure wish that my company could do this.  I'll bet everyone here does.
>>
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A996-2003Sep12?language=printer
>> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Internet-Typos.html
>>
>> *************************
>> James W. Archer
>> CEO
>> http://www.RegistrationTek.com
>>
>>
>



*************************
James W. Archer
CEO
http://www.RegistrationTek.com