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debate Cartelisation by leading Domain drop catching Companies - will ICANN ever wake up?

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As you all know the market for drop catching is clearly driven by handful of leading companies giving no chance for a normal domainer to register domains of his choice. Their business clearly injures end domain users by spiking prices and restricting supply of the expired domains to the general public.

Ain't this against the Anti-cartel law or the Anti-Competition law?

Will FTC or ICANN ever try to regulate this unethical/unlawful business practice?
Will there be any change in the domain drop timings and the number of queries one Entity can make to the Registry giving fair opportunity to every one?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
As you all know the market for drop catching is clearly driven by handful of leading companies giving no chance for a normal domainer to register domains of his choice. Their business clearly injures end domain users by spiking prices and restricting supply of the expired domains to the general public.

Ain't this against the anti-cartel law or the Anti-Competition law?

Will FTC or ICANN ever try to regulate this unethical/unlawful business practice?
Will there be any change in the domain drop timings and the number of queries one Entity can make to the Registry giving fair opportunity to every one?

It's not 'unlawful'.
 
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I think it gives fair chance to everyone who wants a dropped domain because now they can pay a fair price instead of having to do a lottery on who catches first.
 
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DropCatch owns thousands of these “registrar”

For the sole purpose of DropCatching!
Theyre not even “retail registrars”? Why allow

Unfair 5:1 Registrar adv. to rest of competition;
they usually get their target!
Why takes forever scroll down list DC registr;
After #2 Snapnames; No one else come close

DropCatching industry needs major fix. imo!
i always wonder; how it got this bad? ICANN !
 
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It's not 'unlawful'.

Should have never allowed it to get this far

DropCatch industry is like “Cartel” 100% Agree

Samer
 
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Should have never allowed it to get this far

DropCatch industry is like “Cartel” 100% Agree

Samer

Whatever the ethics are, I was just pointing out that it's not 'unlawful' as OP stated.

Perhaps these services need to be scrutinised and changes introduced across the industry.
 
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I'm always scratching my head on why registrars are allowed to keep expired domains to themselves / auction them off. It's disallowed in many, if not all, ccTLDs but I guess com/net/org are no man's land?
 
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I'm always scratching my head on why registrars are allowed to keep expired domains to themselves / auction them off. It's disallowed in many, if not all, ccTLDs but I guess com/net/org are no man's land?

I would speculate that's because most ccTLD's are under tighter control for reasons of trust.
In Australia for instance, the owner of the .com.au is required to be commercially trading or own trademark.
 
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When the USA "figures out" how they can extract the ,most Taxes out of each sale - no other laws (in the US) will be even considered. IMO hahaha
 
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As you all know the market for drop catching is clearly driven by handful of leading companies giving no chance for a normal domainer to register domains of his choice. Their business clearly injures end domain users by spiking prices and restricting supply of the expired domains to the general public.
The dropcatching market in the gTLDs is dominated by a few companies but over 2 million .COM domain names alone are deleted each month. Many of these are never reregistered. The costs of setting up as a successful dropcatcher are hight. It generally involves becoming an ICANN registrar or at least acquiring a few. One of the main dropcatchers has over 100 registrars. Creating these and paying the fees to ICANN is a substantial part of doing business.

Ain't this against the Anti-cartel law or the Anti-Competition law?
This is not a legal opinion but it isn't anti-competitive because anyone is free to start their own drop catching operation. It isn't a cartel as such because the dropcatchers are competing with each other to acquire the domain names rather than deciding which one of them should get the domain names.

Will FTC or ICANN ever try to regulate this unethical/unlawful business practice?
How is it unlawful?

The circumvention of the ICANN gTLD life cycle deletion process is a far worse thing. This is where registrars move expired domain names to an auction site rather than letting them delete normally.

Will there be any change in the domain drop timings and the number of queries one Entity can make to the Registry giving fair opportunity to every one?
Probably not because individual registrants have very little say in ICANN even though it is meant to represent all stakeholders.

Regards...jmcc
 
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DropCatch owns thousands of these “registrar”
Only hundreds, Samer. :)

DropCatching industry needs major fix. imo!
i always wonder; how it got this bad? ICANN !
Regulatory capture.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Only hundreds, Samer. :)

Regulatory capture.

Regards...jmcc

Always a pleasure, @jmcc. passionate this;

Thanks for quick, and courteous correction! :)

How did you distinguish from 1000’s they own.
they still own thousands of registrars, right?
How did you quantify the “non-retail” snipers, owned, for the sole purpose of “DropCatch”
 
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This is not a legal opinion but it isn't anti-competitive because anyone is free to start their own drop catching operation. It isn't a cartel as such because the dropcatchers are competing with each other to acquire the domain names rather than deciding which one of them should get the domain names.

Anyone can also sell Oil, @jmcc, You have to compete with OPEC cartel composed of
7 oil-producing nations pay a lot of duties, regulatory fees etc.. burden start cumbersome

In fact, economists often cite OPEC as a textbook example of a cartel that cooperates to reduce market competition, as in this definition from OECD's Glossary of Industrial Organisation Economics and Competition Law.

DropCatch OPEC Cartel(army 1000 registrars)
Snapnames/NameJet is CA, US, MX.. (#2)

Domainers overpay, addict Backorders imo
inflated public auction DC;most success (!)
Backordering industry continues get worse


Curious as to how much of backorder market
DC and Web control in the backorder sector..
I believe these non-retail registrars are sham;
seperate them; one other; Gamed the system..
 
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Always a pleasure, @jmcc. passionate this;

Thanks for quick, and courteous correction! :)

How did you distinguish from 1000’s they own.
they still own thousands of registrars, right?
There are only about 2,500 ICANN accredited registrars. The ownership details and contact details for the dropcatchers are typically the same. They don't sell to the public and some of them even provide the same URL for the registrar.

How did you quantify the “non-retail” snipers, owned, for the sole purpose of “DropCatch”
Most of the people trying to dropcatch are using the registries rather than individually targeting domain names. When it comes to hosters, for .COM alone, as of 01 August 2020, there are 883,202 hosters with one or more .COM domain names hosted. Of these 522,748 are one hit wonders in that they only have 1 .COM domain name hosted.The top 1,800 hosting firms (registrars and webhosters) have 90.88% of the .COM domain name market. HosterStats tracks has the hosting records for over 600 million domain names (active and deleted) and produces this kind of data each month. I was going to examine the domain name market for the second Domnomics book but people would not believe how concentrated the market is in reality. The rise of Efty and Dan.com have been impressive.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Anyone can also sell Oil, @jmcc, You have to compete with OPEC cartel composed of
7 oil-producing nations pay a lot of duties, regulatory fees etc.. burden start cumbersome
The domain name business is even more complicated. It consists of registries, registrars, resellers and users. With the rise of the ccTLDs, many of the larger webhosters have become resellers for the larger registrars. It is financially more efficient and it doesn't involve the hassle of running a registrar.

DropCatch OPEC Cartel(army 1000 registrars)
Snapnames/NameJet is CA, US, MX.. (#2)
Each registar gets a set of connections to the registry. The more connections, the better the chance they have of dropcatching a deleted domain name. It is a business where milliseconds matter and the ordinary domainer going through their ISP would not be likely to beat an army of hundreds of dropcatch registrars after the same domain name.

Curious as to how much of backorder market
DC and Web control in the backorder sector..
I believe these non-retail registrars are sham;
seperate them; one other; Gamed the system..
The industry considers the rules to be guidelines rather than regulations.

Regards...jmcc
 
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The domain name business is even more complicated. It consists of registries, registrars, resellers and users. With the rise of the ccTLDs, many of the larger webhosters have become resellers for the larger registrars. It is financially more efficient and it doesn't involve the hassle of running a registrar.

Each registar gets a set of connections to the registry. The more connections, the better the chance they have of dropcatching a deleted domain name. It is a business where milliseconds matter and the ordinary domainer going through their ISP would not be likely to beat an army of hundreds of dropcatch registrars after the same domain name.

The industry considers the rules to be guidelines rather than regulations.

Regards...jmcc

Thanks for your time and elaboration, @jmcc.

Learn something new everyday.
(especially when talking to you)

ICANN needs to evolve change rigid rules;
compete already difficult in registrar industry
Change rule allow compete balance BOs area. Should easier attained than going at Godaddy owns 80% market all domains; not backorder

Is there any better way keep up with this?
I think these only existing records; outdated, and...likely moot! we all know who’s winning ; ) Give DS credit (prev owner) still only to show? but “relations” are moot when system gamed;

Not even GD (owns 80% all DNs close to DC..) why waste backorder; own 80% Dn help imo ; )
 
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ICANN needs to evolve change rigid rules;
From what I've seen of it, ICANN is more a reactive organisation than a proactive one. It frames the rules after events rather than to stop those events taking place.

(Godaddy owns 80% market share of domains; not backorder subsector; story fo another day
It doesn't.
Godaddy's main portfolio operation has 25.91% of the AMBIONIC (COM/NET/ORG/BIZ/INFO/MOBI/ASIA) market. Its European portfolio has 0.9% of the AMBIONIC but has substantial ccTLD market share. It also has some brand protection operations.

Is there any better way keep up with this?
It is a lot more complex now due to the morons who inflicted GDPR on the Internet. Some of the large hosting operations (Godaddy, Endurance, UI, CentralNic) have hundreds connected webhosters.

Even using registrar market share as a metric is no longer reliable because some many webhosting operations and registrars have been taken over that some groups have multiple registrars and it is not unusual to see the many of the top registrars/hosters in some country level markets being owned by the same group.

Regards...jmcc
 
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How is this unethical or unlawful?

You are just envy that you can't establish hundreds of registrars yourself. But you can, you just need some money, brains, etc.

We aren't able to compete with them, let's call them unlawful cartel. Nice.
 
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They are an unethical cartel; gamed system.

Still not illegal :xf.wink: It’s legal, just sucks lol

Samer
 
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We aren't able to compete with them, let's call them unlawful cartel. Nice.
If it is not breaking any laws then it is not unlawful. ICANN tries to keep on the right side of the law. It may be unfair to ordinary domainers who don't own registrars but that's the business.

Regards...jmcc
 
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How is this unethical or unlawful?

You are just envy that you can't establish hundreds of registrars yourself. But you can, you just need some money, brains, etc.

We aren't able to compete with them, let's call them unlawful cartel. Nice.

Calling me envy of something here is unwarranted here. Thats a personal remark. It was a mere question and I was seeking healthy discussion/ opinion like other members here posted.

Their business practice certainly restricts supply of expired domains to the general public which clearly violates anti cartel law. They may hold fair auction to their members but not open to everyone. The user is at the mercy of getting his account verified plus forced to store a credit card on file.

The domaining Industry is highly dominated by large pockets who do not care about the legality of such practices and are content as long as their demand for high quality domains is met. The ones who do not have the financial resources aren't able to approach the legal route against such practices.
 
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Their business practice certainly restricts supply of expired domains to the general public which clearly violates anti cartel law.
It is very easy to claim that it violates anti-cartel law but you haven't cited any law to support your case.

There was a time when the entire day's drop from some gTLDs was being reregistered by a handful of registrars. These domain names did not get to the public unless they were deleted again within five days (the Add Grace Period) by these registrars. ICANN introduced a transaction fee to deter this kind of activity. Registrars were able to register and delete domain names without cost within a five day window and it was massively abused.

Millions of gTLD domain names are deleted each month. Most of the are not caught by dropcatchers or domainers. The problem is that the focus is on a small number of domain names with good backlinks or other qualities. These are the domain names that are either sent to auction by their registrars or are targeted by dropcatchers.

Regards...jmcc
 
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It is very easy to claim that it violates anti-cartel law but you haven't cited any law to support your case.

There was a time when the entire day's drop from some gTLDs was being reregistered by a handful of registrars. These domain names did not get to the public unless they were deleted again within five days (the Add Grace Period) by these registrars. ICANN introduced a transaction fee to deter this kind of activity. Registrars were able to register and delete domain names without cost within a five day window and it was massively abused.

Millions of gTLD domain names are deleted each month. Most of the are not caught by dropcatchers or domainers. The problem is that the focus is on a small number of domain names with good backlinks or other qualities. These are the domain names that are either sent to auction by their registrars or are targeted by dropcatchers.

Regards...jmcc


Antitrust laws are the broad group of state and federal laws that are designed to make sure businesses are competing fairly. The Sherman Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Act are the key laws that set the groundwork for antitrust regulation.


Monopolization is a federal crime under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
During the expired domain drop time, these companies flood the Domain registry with thousands of calls per second giving no opportunity for a normal/end user to register the expired domain. They also acquire hundreds of pre-approved ICANN accredited Domain Registrars and create abuse of market dominance and exploitation of the overall Domain name market. This creates a state of monopoly on controlling the Expired Domains market.
 
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Millions of gTLD domain names are deleted each month. Most of the are not caught by dropcatchers or domainers. The problem is that the focus is on a small number of domain names with good backlinks or other qualities. These are the domain names that are either sent to auction by their registrars or are targeted by dropcatchers.

Right but there is a big difference between savoring a scrumptious whole cake and leaving the left over crumbs.
Why should the powerful entities be given that unfair privilege.
 
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