The domain aftermarket has a big problem - Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News
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Domain aftermarkets need to clean up their inventory. Let me start this rant with some good news. This month, I sold a domain name for $6,500 that I found through Domain Academy’s Afternic advanced search tool. I bought the domain for less than $100. Now for the bad news: I spent a lot of time […]

Here’s my take:

The domain aftermarket has a big problem… it exists. This market shouldn’t ever be allowed to exist in the first place. ICANN should’ve blocked this bullshit a long time ago and forced registrars to just let domains expire and free the space. Also add a few provisions about unused domain names and about selling them.

  • Deebster@programming.devEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    The author has no idea how to get his audience on-side! He starts with bragging about his 6400% profit margin on domain he resold, in a market where there’s no customer value for middlemen.

    At least antique dealers will identify pieces as rare, clean/restore them and put them for sale in a more visible place. Whereas domain reselling is about as ethical as ticket touting.

  • smpl@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Does anyone know of a list of TLDs that don’t allow reselling? I’d prefer to buy/lease one of those and let domain sharks play their own games.

  • Godort@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Domain squatting is incredibly scummy, but I have no idea how it would be possible to have any other system.

    My understanding is that domains do expire unless you pay the fee to renew for another year.

    Regarding unused domain names, how would anyone know if a particular name is being unused? Domain names are used for more things than browsable websites. You’d have to have a system that could determine if traffic is going to those names, which seems bad from a privacy standpoint and also pretty easy to script around.