PAB dropcatching

[richard]

The problem is this Richard. What do you say to the thousands of stakeholders and would-be registrants who call Nominet every day to complain about what they regard as the unfair and unlevel playing field that is the "very fast FCFS" you cite?

I mentioned above what could be done to make it fairer.

**To all**

At what point does domain registration not become dropcatching? 1 minute, 5 minutes, 5 hours ??

There is nothing to stop any member from registering domains and it smacks of sour grapes from those who say its unfair because others do it better or have greater resources to do it

Competition exists in all walks of life, just deal with it

Side note, please don't confuse anything i say above with the other issue of abusive registrations or bad faith registrations. that is a whole different issue and incorrectly gets grouped into the whole "dropcatching" phrase

 

[Whois-Search]

At what point does domain registration not become dropcatching? 1 minute, 5 minutes, 5 hours ??

Exactly and whats the differance between using the DAC/Automaton and manual registering something on the same day.

You would be surprised how many people "pick over" http://www.deleting.co.uk/dailydrops/ and then register them with 123-reg everyday.

 

[Jac]

There is nothing to stop any member from registering domains and it smacks of sour grapes from those who say its unfair because others do it better or have greater resources to do it

For the sake of clarity I didn't say there was anything to stop any "member" from registering domains. (I assume by "member" you mean Nominet member?)

But whether or not it smacks of sour grapes is kind of secondary to the point I was making. That Nominet constantly gets lobbied about perceived unfairness by disgruntled stakeholders and/or registrants. Personally, I can see both sides. I have nothing against entrepreneurialism but I see the PAB as being representative of all stakeholders' views (including those we might personally disagree with) so I'm looking forward to hearing other PAB members' views on the 'role of the PAB' at the next meeting.

Competition exists in all walks of life, just deal with it

I agree but the problem in dealing with it does not lie with me but with stakeholders who see unfair competition in the FCFS arena. They are trying to deal with it by lobbying Nominet and whether we personally agree or disagree with them, they have as much right to lobby Nominet as do dropcatchers and domainers. Indeed, dropcatchers and domainers have already been lobbying in terms of the DRS, and their views are already being taken into consideration though the DRS consultation has not yet been presented to the public.

Side note, please don't confuse anything i say above with the other issue of abusive registrations or bad faith registrations. that is a whole different issue and incorrectly gets grouped into the whole "dropcatching" phrase

Understood; and no confusion here. At I have said before, Nominet regards dropcatching and domaining as legitimate business models. I am simply putting forward another stakeholder viewpoint because (1) they don't know about fora like this one and (2) I think it is beneficial to Acorn Domains to know what other stakeholders think.

Regards
James Conaghan

 

[charlie]

What do you say to the thousands of stakeholders and would-be registrants who call Nominet every day to complain about what they regard as the unfair and unlevel playing field that is the "very fast FCFS" you cite?.....there are thousands of would-be registrants....

i say "try approaching the current holder and buy it off them?"
wish i had 'thousands' asking about my registrations!

 

[Beasty]

i say "try approaching the current holder and buy it off them?"
wish i had 'thousands' asking about my registrations!

:lol: :lol: I like it Charlie. I have to say that I always get a bit cocnerned when organisations talk of "popular demand" etc. - at which point I ask them to produce a list of the populous making the demands.

As an example, our local council said they were introducing expensive parking permits and wardens like vultures due to "popular demand", confirmed in a consultation. It was so "popular" it got them booted out at the last election!

I have no "dropcatching" axe to grind - I don't look at drop lists and don't have any tools to catch names - I'm not a TAG holder or Nominet member. So I guess in that sense I'm like those who lose out on domains - and who lobby Nominet at lunches.

But I don't feel agrieved. To my mind it is a level playing field, as Richard says. There are just some people who are more interested in catching domains than I am and who work harder at it. If I understand it correctly, there may be an advantage in what data you get access to if you are a Nominet member (?) - but otherwise I can't really see that there's a serious issue. If you want something badly enough, make the effort to compete. If you don't want to compete - be prepared to pay a premium to acquire it from those who have done to hard work to get it. Pretty much like any other assets - subject always to remedies for any rights infringment that may occur.

 

[newbie]

I first started looking at catching expired domains names last year and thought it would be a great way of making money. Then i found that no matter what I did, I couldn't catch any half decent names quicker than the already established guys.

A year on and I now catch some names, my tecniques have improved - just as everyone elses over the last year.

All it took for me to get going was a little look through forums such as this, learning how to read public WHOIS records, learn a little PHP/Perl, buy a TAG and test, test and restest my little simple script.

ANYONE can do this, I did. It's not great, but it puts me in with a chance.

For me to expect to do as well as guys that have been doing it for longer, or who have done more research, collected more data or who have spent 10 (or 100) times more on working it out - would be ridiculous.

It is an open market, no hidden data, a free for all. As with any activity, the more you invest and the more time you spend then the better you get.

I think it's a fair system as you do not need any inside info to get going, it's all public.

Just my 2 cents!

Newbie.

 

[Jay Daley]

There is another side to this issue which doesn't get much explanation.

We find that there are a lot of people who use a name in some way but it wasn't registered in their name (or companies), which wasn't something people used to check. Then something happens that means the name does not get renewed and they can't get a transfer as the original registrant has disappeared. So they are left thinking that they have to wait for it to be cancelled when they will just register it for themselves.

But of course the name gets picked up by a dropcatcher straight away because of its OV score. The person who thinks they should be the reg is left disappointed and wondering why someone else is 'stealing' their name.

Now we've made some changes to tackle this, namely allowing a transfer when the original reg has disappeared and the proposed new reg can prove they have established use. But I suspect this is where some of the antagonism comes from.