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discuss Is A Collectively Owned Registrar A Good Idea?

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How do you feel about a possible collectively owned domainer registrar?

  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.
  • I don't see a need for one, and would not use it.

    40 
    votes
    22.6%
  • I like the idea in principle, but it would be too difficult to set up.

    60 
    votes
    33.9%
  • I am enthusiastic about one, and would definitely use it.

    40 
    votes
    22.6%
  • I would be willing to help lead the initiative.

    19 
    votes
    10.7%
  • I think we should discuss it, but not sure if I am in favour or against.

    39 
    votes
    22.0%
  • I am against the idea of a collective registrar, or even discussing it.

    11 
    votes
    6.2%
  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.

Bob Hawkes

Top Member
NameTalent.com
Impact
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As part of the discussions around the locked domain names and registrar terms of service, the idea of a collective domainer-owned registrar came up. In order to not take the thread off-track, it was proposed that I should set up a thread for just that topic.

The following comments offered by @oldtimer broadly outlines both what would need to be done.
We probably first need to create a legal entity through some kind of an Association or Corporation so that it can apply for being a Registrar, but you need to check with ICANN to see which legal entities can actually qualify for this according to their rules.

I guess we have to come up with a nice name for our Association and select all the people who are going to run it and probably charge some kind of an Association Fee so that it can become self sustaining by itself.

In my opinion, the primary reason to consider a registrar co-operative would be to make sure that the terms of service protect domainer (and other) rights in a fair and transparent manner that includes due process. It would have a transparent, fair and rapid process for dealing with allegations about domain names. Of course, any registrar would be subject to UDRP, court orders and associated processes.

I think it is very unlikely that a collectively-owned registrar could offer services at lower prices. Some existing registrar is always offering major legacy registrations or transfers below their base cost, and occasionally renewals.They are able to do that because they anticipate additional revenue through services like web hosting, or make commissions when the domain name sells. If a collectively owned registrar was simply a registrar, it would have to charge higher registration fees to break even.

This is not an exclusive list, but some points that might warrant discussion here.
  1. How would it be structured legally, and what might be requirements for membership?
  2. Would there be an annual cost of membership? If so, what range?
  3. What domains would it handle, e.g. just major legacy, almost everything including many country code, or something in between?
  4. I presume it would need ICANN accreditation to be widely accepted. Is that right?
  5. What things bother us about current commercial registrar offerings?
  6. Would it offer other services, and if so which ones? e.g. a marketplace, an expiry stream process, insurance or legal services, etc.
  7. Would a domainer-collective registrar face trust issues with the general public, who would probably be unfamiliar with the registrar?
  8. Do you see in addition to registrar it having a wholesale marketplace? A retail marketplace? An expired domain process?
  9. Would it have the advantage, since starting from scratch, to be able to use modern technology like blockchain record keeping and support for fractional ownership and payment plan record keeping?
  10. How do you feel the existing marketplaces would feel about it, and would they work with it?
More broadly, there is the question, with thousands of registrar choices, are we not well enough served already? At least a number of registrars were started by domainers and therefore were focussed on serving domain investors.

There is a thread started by @equity78 asking the main registrars domain investors use to state their ToS and dispute practices. That background is clearly relevant.

I have a few other thoughts, but will leave them for later. Just to make clear, I am not pushing this idea, and definitely not willing to help lead such an initiative, at my age, background and investment level. I do hope to do some research on past efforts along these lines, similar co-operatives in other sectors, and ICANN requirements. Please provide background and links on initiatives like this that have been tried in the past.

Look forward to seeing what everyone thinks.

Bob

(Please vote in the associated poll -- note that you can select multiple items, if desired.)
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
While idea is definitely interesting and for sure worth discussion, I see 2 big issues here:

1. Already mentioned by @twiki . Is this enterprise acts for the best of ''company'' or for the best of ''end users'' (us, who (an irony!) are the shareholders, thus owners). Cause interest of registrar as a company and our interest as users can (and will!) go quite opposite directions, and pretty fast. And one will suffer. Not too hard to guess - whoever suffers - it's us.
That's more of an operational problem, yet very tough in reality.

2. Another, more fundamental. What will be in this registrar that will make domainers WANT to participate?

Cutting-edge software to get the most awesome and accurate estimation for the domain names that only we can use?
Certain features (multiple registrars, probably, that belong to us) to beat DropCatch on domain catching games?
Out of this world a statistics bar, that will allow us to track landing visitors fast and accurately?

Like, what it is exactly that our new registrar will offer for everyone to unite, point fingers and shout ''Yes, this is what I want!''. Because simply the idea of a certain ''elite'' club alone - doesn't really feel appealing to me, honestly.

So, to sum 2. up - IT REALLY HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN IT, THAT OTHER REGISTRARS DO NOT OFFER, and better more than one feature. I think this is a really core point here and this will be an extremely difficult task to tackle.
 
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There are probably enough Registrars in the domain Industry already,
Are we trying to make GD & NC the 2 domain giants?

Maybe members can chip in $1000 each to get the Registrar started and then pay $750 per year to keep it going and in return get .com domains for $7.85 , this could work if we got enough people interested (like at least 1000 members).
This sounds like a tax on domainers. What if I only have 3 domains, do I have to pay $1000 + $773.55 a year?
 
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If this were to come to fruition, we will of course not want to pay more than the registry charges. We need to think about how will the registrar stay alive? Will some people pitch in what they can? Someone pays for hosting, someone takes care of legal, etc... What if one person leaves and we can't find a good replacement?

Some things to consider. If we can figure it out, I can definitely help with the branding and design.
 
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I believe this is an impossibility to achieve. There I said it.
 
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Here's my two cents.

I think a registrar charging "more" versus just a dollar or so above registry fee will be against some folks interest, but I think in the long run, paying more for a registrar that will stay in business and not get acquired in a year or whatever is a better longer term strategy.

Someone once told me that certain "brand protection" esque companies typically charge in a range of $20-35/domain/year for a .COM. May seem expensive, but given the extras of such service included (WHOIS privacy, due process in the event of complaints/disputes, technically oriented and reliable customer service) I certainly think it has some value in these times.
 
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Hello @Bob Hawkes ,

As you have mentioned in the first place:
The question should probably not be around any registrar's ownership, but rather around changing some of existing registrar's terms of service, as they are not carved in stone!
From the moment an existing registrar will guarantee:
1. The presumption of innocence of every customer is a top priority.
2. Filing a case or court decision out of registrar's initial location can not result in domain lock or change of ownership.
3. Transparent and imediate(24hours) communication of any legal issue with the domain owner.

I will be happy to be their customer!

Best Regards
 
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In any business idea, you need to understand your personal interest and how this project will be monetized. Otherwise, I'm sorry, why would anyone want to do this? The collective management system has clear advantages, but also clear disadvantages. First of all, I am sure that this is a system of management and personal interest
 
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I like the idea in theory but like Rob Monster points out there's a lot more to it than just setting up a regular business. He outta know!
 
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I like the idea in theory but like Rob Monster points out there's a lot more to it than just setting up a regular business. He outta know!

I agree,

We welcome any and all advice and assistance from the people who have a proven track record in the domain Industry and that are already familiar with all aspects of running a Registrar and or an Association, but even if we use someone's expertise directly as a paid consultant or employee or whether we just take advantage of the products and services that their company provides, We The Domainers as a Collective still have to be in charge of all the executive decision making processes and must be able to choose the direction and vision that we like for our Registrar and Association to have.

Although people should be free to align their own company with whomever they want to cater to when it comes to what they consider to be right politically, religiously, racially, or socially and certainly should have the right to do whatever they see fit to maximize their profits and perhaps even be looking forward to getting bought for a huge sum at the end,

But those are not the visions and goals that we want to have for our Collectively Owned Registrar and Association which are primarily going to be created (perhaps as nonprofits) to serve the needs of its membership.

This should be looked at as a new and revolutionary idea that is going to go beyond the way that business is currently being handled in the domain Industry.

We would be very happy to get any and all help from any of the big players in the status quo as long as it is with the understanding that it's the status quo of the domain Industry itself that we are trying to change for the Domaining Community here.

:xf.wink::angelic::xf.smile:

IMO
 
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Hi biggie,

Not necessarily, remember the .org where most people including a lot of the domainers were against the takeover.
The .ORG is not a great comparison because it was the bulk of the registrants who were opposed to the sale. I ran a fast usage survey on the number of domain names for sale in the gTLD and it was only around 3%. The percentage of domainer registrations in a gTLDs varies. The .ORG is actually more like a ccTLD than a gTLD in the way that some of the registrants think of it as *their* TLD.

Targeting domainers as a business model does not work well because a lot of speculative registrations will not renew. The other aspect is that the registries run discounting offers that are made available to all registrars (or should be) by the registries. That puts the prospective registrar straight into competition with the big players like Godaddy. Some of the auction websites have also become registrars though many of the domain names on these sites are on other registrars.

If you look at the number of accredited gTLD registrars, the number looks impressive. It is around 2,500. Many of them are drop catch registrars that do not sell to the public. But what most people don't see are the numbers of registrars that are owned by large hosting operations like Godaddy, Newfold Digital (ex EIG and Web.com) etc. It is quite a concentrated market. If such a registrar was to begin to have an impact, the big registrar operators would immediately target the big portfolio operators with better discounts to stop them switching registrars.

The game is very much rigged against small independent registrars and domain names are generally used to upsell customers to products or services (hosting/CMS/certificates etc). Domainer friendly registrars have been attempted before but as was pointed out earlier, they generally end up being sold to a bigger player.

Regards...jmcc
 
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One of the reports that I publish each month covers the gTLD domain name transactions at a hoster and registrar level. The concentration of the gTLD market is quite strong with approximately 26% of the market being resellers. The main registration activity is on registrars and registrar front hosters. These are web hosters that the registrar operators have acquired as part of takeovers or mergers. It is not unusual to see some of the big operators with over a hundred different hosting "brands".

The one thing that hasn't, I think, been mentioned so far are the marketing costs. This is also the reason why many of the new gTLDs have only a few hundred new registrations a month. The new gTLD registries often did not expect to have to market their gTLDs because they believed the Field of Dreams fallacy. (If you build it, they will come.) Registrars generally evolve out of hosters that have enough customers and existing registrations to justify becoming ICANN accredited (or ccTLD registry accredited). Creating the awareness for a new registrar with no customers and no domain names under management (DUMs as they are known) would require more money than that required for a hoster making the leap to becoming a registrar.

It might be better to test the idea first by outsourcing the registrations to one of the big registrars that offers whitelabel hosting and registration as a service. That way, if the operation manages to reach the critical mass of domain names and customers to make ICANN accreditiation financially viable, it can be examined. The domainer aspect might have to take a back seat for a while. While a domainer friendly registrar is nice in theory, its commercial reality that is the problem that has to be solved first.

Regards...jmcc
 
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If 2 or more people need to decide on a business decision its already a doomed business in most cases.
 
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It might be better to test the idea first by outsourcing the registrations to one of the big registrars that offers whitelabel hosting and registration as a service. That way, if the operation manages to reach the critical mass of domain names and customers to make ICANN accreditiation financially viable, it can be examined. The domainer aspect might have to take a back seat for a while. While a domainer friendly registrar is nice in theory, its commercial reality that is the problem that has to be solved first.

Regards...jmcc

Thanks for all the valuable info,

One factor that we are counting on is the domainers attraction and loyalty to a collectively owned and operated Registrar and Association that are going to be managed by domainers themselves.

The ongoing frustrations of the domaining community which has resulted from the unfair treatment that they have been receiving from some of the existing Registrars has created an awarness amongst domainers for the fact that they are not being appreciated by the status quo in the domain Industry and hence has given us the idea to take the matters into our own hands.

This is not really about making a profit as our Registrar and Association might be run as nonprofits. This project and the idea behind it has to do more about standing up for our Rights as customers and Registrants.

By the way do you know how much it will roughly cost to create an accredited Registrar and the yearly fees if we were going to keep this limited to .com domains at the beginning.

IMO
 
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By the way do you know how much it will roughly cost to create an accredited Registrar and the yearly fees if we were going to keep this limited to .com domains at the beginning.

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/financials-55-2012-02-25-en

Add to that 24/7 (US, inhouse) support (office space?), Infrastructure cost (aws?, owned hardware? Owned ASN/IPspace?), dev/maintenance cost (frontend/backend/API), legal, payment processors etc.

It adds up.
 
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https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/financials-55-2012-02-25-en

Add to that 24/7 (US, inhouse) support (office space?), Infrastructure cost (aws?, owned hardware? Owned ASN/IPspace?), dev/maintenance cost (frontend/backend/API), legal, payment processors etc.

It adds up.

Thanks for the info,

In addition this is from Verisign that explains the requirements for becoming a Registrar in the first place:

https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/become-a-registrar/index.xhtml

Ultimately whether this project is going to get off the ground or not depends on the domaining community's support and reception to the idea of being in charge themselves.

So I am not going to push for this idea alone if there is not enough enthusiasm on the part of domsiners themselves.

Nevertheless in exploring the possibilities of making our own Registrar we might learn some valuable lessons as to what a perfect Registrar should be and what it is going to take to start one.

IMO
 
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In principle it is a good idea, but the business proposal itself I 'think' would prove inoperable.

Sorry, but I could see almost continual disagreements and arguments, factions forming, and indeed some domainers leaving because they felt slighted, etc., by other members.

I think that it is better to have a really good mix of registrars where we can exert influence over with our own $$$'s by moving domains and other business away from them.
 
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