Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

https://www.namecoin.org/dot-bit/
mightbemike
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by mightbemike »

I strongly disagree with the premise. What evidence do you have that domain squatting is a problem?

Many in the traditional domain system have long argued that there are speculators, arbitrageurs, trademark infringers and others who all get collectively labeled as "squatters". It has never been clear whether more value is provided to the system or if more harm is done. Many contend that early speculators registering domain names they intend to market to potential end users helps to bootstrap a market, and provide liquidity.

If your evidence is the fact that a registrant would not sell you a domain name for under $1000 I think your logic is suspect. Why do you have more right to the domain than the current registrant? You don't.

And how is it that you've determined that a price is "reasonable"? Maybe you think myname.bit is not worth much, but who cares? I don't want to sell it to you, regardless of whether you think your price is reasonable or not. If you want to compel me to sell it, I think you need to avail yourself of the ICANN system. This is different.
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mightbemike
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by mightbemike »

Let me add also that the goals for Namecoin and other systems are different. Bitshares DACs operate as a group of shareholders, incented to maximize the "value" realized by the network, ultimately measured in monetary terms. Registry operators in the ICANN domain system are companies with a similar incentive - maximizing profit.

Namecoin has no company, shareholders, or profits. Realizing value in the Namecoin DNS primarily means providing value to registrants, collectively or individually, not network operators. No right and wrong here, just different goals.
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fresheneesz
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by fresheneesz »

Mightbemike, with all due respect, the idea that domain squatters provide any value at all (liquidity or otherwise) is utter bullshit. Its the same kind of bullshit that people who defend high frequency trading go on about. I searched to see whether others have come to the same conclusion and I'm not surprised to find they have: http://www.indolering.com/domain-name-squatters

Liquidity is offered by buyers of domains, not by hoarders. Providing a system where people can easily buy and sell domains provides liquidity. But devising a system where people can hoard domains without putting them to use in no way provides liquidity. Besides *not* offering liquidity, domain squatters have a very significant negative effect on the market of domains. It is unfathomable that someone could think that has any kind of positive effect.

Domain squatting is a huge problem in the ICANN system, and there is no reason to believe that it will be any different in namecoin if that goes mainstream.

I have more right than the current registrant, because THEY AREN'T USING IT. Domains start as public property. Letting people essentially steal public property, hoard it so the value goes up, and then sell it at exorbitant prices is called MARKET MANIPULATION and is very solidly illegal in other contexts.

Sorry to be so short, but your defense of domain squatters is incredibly frustrating when the problems are so obvious.

sudoquai
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by sudoquai »

fresheneesz wrote:Mightbemike, with all due respect, the idea that domain squatters provide any value at all (liquidity or otherwise) is utter bullshit. Its the same kind of bullshit that people who defend high frequency trading go on about. I searched to see whether others have come to the same conclusion and I'm not surprised to find they have: http://www.indolering.com/domain-name-squatters

Liquidity is offered by buyers of domains, not by hoarders. Providing a system where people can easily buy and sell domains provides liquidity. But devising a system where people can hoard domains without putting them to use in no way provides liquidity. Besides *not* offering liquidity, domain squatters have a very significant negative effect on the market of domains. It is unfathomable that someone could think that has any kind of positive effect.

Domain squatting is a huge problem in the ICANN system, and there is no reason to believe that it will be any different in namecoin if that goes mainstream.

I have more right than the current registrant, because THEY AREN'T USING IT. Domains start as public property. Letting people essentially steal public property, hoard it so the value goes up, and then sell it at exorbitant prices is called MARKET MANIPULATION and is very solidly illegal in other contexts.

Sorry to be so short, but your defense of domain squatters is incredibly frustrating when the problems are so obvious.


Ack.

I want to add one single point. The success of Namecoin does not depend only on the success of .bit domains. Openbaazar for example is going to integrate id/ namespace as an authentification solution.

If .bit domains are not successful in the near future, they are enough alternative usage cases, which could be very useful for Namecoin.
Last edited by sudoquai on Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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sudoquai
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by sudoquai »

domob wrote:
sudoquai wrote:That's an interesting point. I would like to add that, there is hard to contact some owners, because they didn't post any contact information. To bring the discussion to a point - domob mentioned that squatting domain names is not a problem. I agree to that - the real problem is that it's hard and clunky to trade them.
sudoquai wrote:With upcoming libcoin, fully supporting Namecoin RPC calls, its easy to make an own Namecoin Wallet with integrated (domain) name trading system.
I agree here, atomic name trading is really nice. We're waiting for someone to implement a UI, so feel free to do just that. ;) I don't quite see what that has to do with libcoin, though. It works just as well (actually, only at the moment) with namecoind. You don't have to wait, everything is already there with my RPC calls and phelix' script.
You are right a Namecoin Wallet with integrated domain trading can be done without waiting for libcoin. However i prefer waiting for it first, as you said that it would work well with namecoind (actually, only at the moment). I think it would be easier and more safe to develop it on top of libcoin as you are going to abandon the old codebase. If i am going to implement it at my own depends on how much time i would like to invest in it and which incentive i can expect. However, it was more meant as an idea for fresheneesz to develop it on his own. From my side i've offered a good donation, when an UI is implemented which supports domain trading in a userfriendly way.
domob wrote: However, one could think about enabling auctions on a different TLD - let's keep .bit for "free speech" and add something else for companies, trademark holders and "highest economic use" advocates.
Interesting idea, i've thought about the same. With for example new ".bad" domains with a new particular namespace, we could have a completely unsquatted namespace. In this case the situation is maybe better, because Namecoin is more expensive in the meantime, and domain traders are maybe more sceptically about the future potential of a new namespace, which would prevent them maybe from hoarding big amounts. In combination with a userfriendly system to trade these domains, we can reach a better "squatting" situation.

As far as i understand this, the integration of a new Namecoin TLD can be done by modifying DNSChain for the usage of bad/ for example and doesn't affect changes to the Namecoin protocol, imho.
domob wrote: Or, going even further, we could let Bitshares try it out for us.
Good idea. Copying a successful system (in the case Bitshares system will be successful) and making it better is not a bad strategy, imho.
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domob
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by domob »

sudoquai wrote:You are right a Namecoin Wallet with integrated domain trading can be done without waiting for libcoin. However i prefer waiting for it first, as you said that it would work well with namecoind (actually, only at the moment). I think it would be easier and more safe to develop it on top of libcoin as you are going to abandon the old codebase. If i am going to implement it at my own depends on how much time i would like to invest in it and which incentive i can expect. However, it was more meant as an idea for fresheneesz to develop it on his own. From my side i've offered a good donation, when an UI is implemented which supports domain trading in a userfriendly way.
That's true if you plan (or whoever will be doing it) to base your work off the Qt UI. Note, though, that I'm currently not planning to develop any UI for libcoin at all. An alternative (which seems like a very good idea to me if someone is interested in it) is to develop a new UI that relies only on the RPC calls. It could be either a UI "only" for name trading, or even a full Namecoin UI including name registration, management and basic coin wallet functions. If it is done based on the RPC interface, it will work out-of-the-box with namecoind, libcoin, a possibly rebased client on Bitcoin Core and every other client that will be there in the future. And it can be used even for other coins (including Bitcoin), except for name functionality.
sudoquai wrote:
domob wrote: However, one could think about enabling auctions on a different TLD - let's keep .bit for "free speech" and add something else for companies, trademark holders and "highest economic use" advocates.
As far as i understand this, the integration of a new Namecoin TLD can be done by modifying DNSChain for the usage of bad/ for example and doesn't affect changes to the Namecoin protocol, imho.
The protocol change is necessary if we want to allow auctions for names in this namespace. Currently, all names are treated the same on the protocol level, no matter if "d/", "id/" or "bad/". This won't be the case after the hypothetical change, since then the core protocol needs to allow auctions for "bad/" names but keep to the current protocol for "d/" (and probably other names). This is quite an invasive change, although not impossible if it turns out to be something really useful in the future.
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fresheneesz
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by fresheneesz »

domain traders are maybe more skeptically about the future potential of a new namespace, which would prevent them maybe from hoarding big amounts.
In a system where domains are basically free, even the smallest potential of the system will bring hoarders. And even if it doesn't, when it becomes popular, the hoarders will be there. There isn't some small time window where, if you avoid hoarders, they never appear. All that is just wishful thinking. There have to be mechanisms in place to deter hoarders, otherwise its inevitable.

virtual_master
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by virtual_master »

We have already a couple of older threads discussing about different auction models and I think it is a good idea.
Anyway we need a more just system for name registrations then the actual one where the interests of the squatters are balanced with the interests of the real users.
The actual fee system also have the danger that a frustrated potential user will start another namespace for domains which is still not squatted like it happened with onename for IDs.
As last time after we all agreed on the auction system came a new user who was heavily against it so we could eventually start with a more simple scaled fee system based on name length.(the fee being inverse proportional with the name length). Short names which are more likely valorous should be more expensive then now and very long names even cheaper then now(mostly for testing purpose).
A simple system is less likely to have bugs on the implementation.
Later could be implemented a combined fee system - basically length based but for ex. under 8 or 10 characters auction based.
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fresheneesz
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by fresheneesz »

virtual_master - mind linking the old threads you mentioned, if you can find them?

mightbemike
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Re: Proposal: Domains should be regularly auctioned

Post by mightbemike »

fresheneesz wrote:Mightbemike, with all due respect, the idea that domain squatters provide any value at all (liquidity or otherwise) is utter bullshit. Its the same kind of bullshit that people who defend high frequency trading go on about. I searched to see whether others have come to the same conclusion and I'm not surprised to find they have: http://www.indolering.com/domain-name-squatters

Liquidity is offered by buyers of domains, not by hoarders. Providing a system where people can easily buy and sell domains provides liquidity. But devising a system where people can hoard domains without putting them to use in no way provides liquidity. Besides *not* offering liquidity, domain squatters have a very significant negative effect on the market of domains. It is unfathomable that someone could think that has any kind of positive effect.
I respect your right to your opinion. And I'm not trying to suggest that it's not important to consider the rights of the community versus the rights of individual registrants. My goal was simply to try to get people to question these basic assumptions.

First of all, your "hoarders" had to be buyers in order to acquire the names, and their intention is presumably to become sellers. More buying & selling = more liquidity. For new TLDs in particular, early speculators add to the network effect that contributes to others' decision making process. People now watch very closely how many domains are registered in the first day, week and month for each new gTLD, because it does matter. People want the "hot" new extensions.

fresheneesz wrote:Domain squatting is a huge problem in the ICANN system, and there is no reason to believe that it will be any different in namecoin if that goes mainstream.
Your assumption that "Domain squatting is a huge problem in the ICANN system", is a widely held belief, but I would challenge you to find any evidence to support that claim. Hand-waving proofs don't convince me. Everyone once believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, yet the evidence led to another conclusion.

fresheneesz wrote:I have more right than the current registrant, because THEY AREN'T USING IT. Domains start as public property. Letting people essentially steal public property, hoard it so the value goes up, and then sell it at exorbitant prices is called MARKET MANIPULATION and is very solidly illegal in other contexts.
How would you determine if they are "using it" anyway? Would that definition include negotiating with potential partners for the development of a future site on that domain? Or scheduling it to be developed next year when the owner's dev team has completed other projects? What if I regged it with the intent of never building a site, but only using email or something else on that domain? What if I'm holding the domain for a child of mine to use in a few years? What about companies who commonly use defensive registrations to protect their brands and IP from confusingly similar names? What about companies that register names well in advance of yet-to-be-released products so it'll still be available when their product dev is ready?

There are plenty more of these edge cases too, but I'll sum it up with this question. What gives you the right to say that I'm not using a domain name just because you don't know all of the facts?

fresheneesz wrote:Sorry to be so short, but your defense of domain squatters is incredibly frustrating when the problems are so obvious.
No problem, I totally understand the passion; the opportunities are exciting. Luckily there's plenty of that enthusiasm around here :)
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