news Verisign Blog Calls Us All "Domain Scalpers"

[Bob Hawkes]

It appears that Verisign are feeling pretty secure now that they have their 6 year agreement with 4x7% price increases on .com and their stock popped up 18% today. In a blog post today Verisign say:

"Flipping domain names or warehousing them to create scarcity adds nothing to the industry and merely allows those engaged in this questionable practice to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers and businesses." - Verisign today​

Andrew has written an excellent column on it here, or you can read their blog post (I wonder if it will get revised?) here.

As Andrew points out:

Verisign has been catering to this market for years. Sponsoring its conferences, promoting domain investing, creating the very tools designed to let domain investors know which domains to register…and now it wants to pretend it has nothing to do with this “questionable practice”. C’mon.
​

This is almost unbelievable and I can't believe it will not anger many. At least for those of us who were trying to decide whether we call ourselves domainers (not a dictionary term),domain investors, domain service agents, domain experts, domain originators, etc. no longer need to worry about that. We are all scalpers according to Verisign.

Seriously, amazingly insensitive of Verisign.

Bob (grrrr... feeling angry )

ps I always try to find the bright side of everything. A good day for ngTLD and country code extensions I guess?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Someone should advise Verisign that the term "scalper" is very insulting to our Native American friends and the author should probably apologize for using that as term as an insult.

A good point @DomainRecap

As of now, the article still includes it, for example....

"In fact, the real opportunity for consumer savings would come from reducing or eliminating the more than $1 billion per year in scalping fees that businesses and consumers pay today."

and

"Domain speculation, or “domain scalping,” as some call it, has become a highly profitable industry unto itself. In fact, one of the top domain name speculators in this market reports a net worth of $500 million. These speculators even have their own lobbying group, the Internet Commerce Association (ICA)"​

 

[equity78]

Being well versed in American history I knew it was only a matter of time before that came up.
FYI - I do believe the term was removed from the post.

What they changed was from domain scalpers to domain scalping.

 

[equity78]

This is the source of their anger:

The bottom line is this: Since our government continues to regulate .com prices, then we should make sure that price regulation actually benefits consumers, instead of contributing over a billion dollars to domain speculators every year.

This angers them to no end, they want to be who they were with .tv or Donuts, no price caps, we do what we want, we become the speculators and eliminate an unnecessary link in the chain.

 

[Internet.Domains]

What they changed was from domain scalpers to domain scalping.

scalp
/skalp/
verb
historical
gerund or present participle: scalping

1. take the scalp of (an enemy).
   • informal
     punish severely.
     "if I ever heard anybody doing that, I'd scalp them"
   • informal•North American
     sell (a ticket) for a popular event at a price higher than the official one.
     "tickets were scalped for forty times their face value"

Origin Dictionary

 

[DomainRecap]

Her post seems to imply that this has got increasingly so (high prices due to speculation) in recent years but actually the data supports the opposite - average resale prices are going down.

Not to mention she delves into the fairyland idiocy of proposing that without domain investors, that every name would be freely available to anyone who wants to register it, and we'd all frolic in the fields with the unicorns.

She is not only living in a strange fantasyland, but she ignores that large corporations also stockpile relevant domains as both protection and as digital investments - do you really think that even in her fairyland, that Amazon, Google, Microsoft, et al wouldn't have already scooped up all the LL and LLL and dictionary words?

They'd be long gone honey, and everyone knows it. Someone would buy them, as they are inherently valuable.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I am glad that .org was split out from the packagel in 2003, but it is unfortunate that .net and .com are held by the same party. Just too much control over valuable digital real estate. Having .cc and .tv and .name makes it even moreso.

 

[DomainRecap]

This angers them to no end, they want to be who they were with .tv or Donuts, no price caps, we do what we want, we become the speculators and eliminate an unnecessary link in the chain.

Thankfully, all the big fat cat business donars of Trump's campaign would never allow that.

 

[alcy]

i think one of coments I read on the net hit nail on the head..
she just try shift attention from price increase to blame it all domainer investors.. or domain scalpers.. or whatever the new name is.

its pretty clever marketing... but I guess domain scalpers aren't stupid either.

 

[DomainRecap]

I am glad that .org was split out from the packagel in 2003, but it is unfortunate that .net and .com are held by the same party. Just too much control over valuable digital real estate. Having .cc and .tv and .name makes it even moreso.

And first outright scamming to buy the only potential challenger, .WEB, then holding it hostage to never to see the light of day.

Love the chain of events there - the Verisign shill company proposes to give all auction proceeds to ICANN (rather than divvy them up between the bidders, as is standard) afterwards paying an insane $135 million straight to ICANN, then after the curtain came down and revealed Verisign as the actual buyer, they had to get ICANN to okay the deal when other auction participants complained and challenged.

There are 135 million reasons why that deal went the way it did.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I agree @Alcyy that it is probably to shift attention from the fact that a long monopoly was given, with significant price increases, with perhaps little real negotiation (I don't know the latter).

I feel that if the domain community does not effectively show the errors in the reasoning that to at least some policy makers it will become accepted as true.

What do people feel is coming as the one simple solution to stop the excess costs from domain speculation in her next post?

Bob

 

[Haykay2005]

The name you call me does not matter. If you want my domain (digital asset), pay the asking price!!

 

[DomainRecap]

What they changed was from domain scalpers to domain scalping.

Doesn't matter anyway, as the link to Ticket Scalpers/Scalping is the same thing, like the Washington Redskins, but that doesn't mean I should start using Redskin, Scalping or Scalper willy-nilly as a modifier to any derogatory term I choose.

Those are extremely old usages, kinda with a grandfather rule, and it's sad that it's gone on as long as it has. We do not need any more _______ Redskins or _______ Scalpers.

 

[Kate]

The reasoning is so flawed that I don't know where to begin. VRSN have a license to print money, and they are trashing their customers who risk their own money. Do they want to swap places ? Of course not, they are in such a privileged position.

Then they are suggesting we are disrupting the market, extorting businesses. But nobody has any obligation to turn to a domain speculator for their domain needs. People are free to buy any unregistered .com for $10. That's the truth, few end users are paying more than regfee for a domain name.
On the other hand we have seen their business model in .tv in the past. They rendered the good names unaffordable.
What is at stake is not only the need to keep registration prices 'reasonable' but maintain predictability. The gTLD pricing debacle should serve as a lesson. If the registries are allowed to this creates disruption.

They are in the position of a casino, they cannot be allowed to change the rules all along or make different rules for each player.

They are starting to behave very much like government, a cozy monopoly that thinks it can afford to ignore the people it is supposed to serve.

And they have the nerve to complain. Hypocrisy at its finest.
The bottom line is that consumers are being ripped off because of Verisign's monopoly and the complicity of Icann. They could save well over $1 billion every year. And I too have a simple solution to this problem

 

[DomainRecap]

And I too have a simple solution to this problem

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[equity78]

The reasoning is so flawed that I don't know where to begin. VRSN have a license to print money, and they are trashing their customers who risk their own money. Do they want to swap places ? Of course not, they are in such a privileged position.

Then they are suggesting we are disrupting the market, extorting businesses. But nobody has any obligation to turn to a domain speculator for their domain needs. People are free to buy any unregistered .com for $10. That's the truth, few end users are paying more than regfee for a domain name.
On the other hand we have seen their business model in .tv in the past. They rendered the good names unaffordable.
What is at stake is not only the need to keep registration prices 'reasonable' but maintain predictability. The gTLD pricing debacle should serve as a lesson. If the registries are allowed to this creates disruption.

They are in the position of a casino, they cannot be allowed to change the rules all along or make different rules for each player.

They are starting to behave very much like government, a cozy monopoly that thinks it can afford to ignore the people it is supposed to serve.

And they have the nerve to complain. Hypocrisy at its finest.
The bottom line is that consumers are being ripped off because of Verisign's monopoly and the complicity of Icann. They could save well over $1 billion every year. And I too have a simple solution to this problem

Spot on Kate, I just think what Mike said is making sense, this disparagement needs to be done to get their ultimate goal, no price caps, they don't like they can't do what Donuts can do with pricing power.

 

[alcy]

The reasoning is so flawed that I don't know where to begin. VRSN have a license to print money, and they are trashing their customers who risk their own money. Do they want to swap places ? Of course not, they are in such a privileged position.

Then they are suggesting we are disrupting the market, extorting businesses. But nobody has any obligation to turn to a domain speculator for their domain needs. People are free to buy any unregistered .com for $10. That's the truth, few end users are paying more than regfee for a domain name.
On the other hand we have seen their business model in .tv in the past. They rendered the good names unaffordable.
What is at stake is not only the need to keep registration prices 'reasonable' but maintain predictability. The gTLD pricing debacle should serve as a lesson. If the registries are allowed to this creates disruption.

They are in the position of a casino, they cannot be allowed to change the rules all along or make different rules for each player.

They are starting to behave very much like government, a cozy monopoly that thinks it can afford to ignore the people it is supposed to serve.

And they have the nerve to complain. Hypocrisy at its finest.
The bottom line is that consumers are being ripped off because of Verisign's monopoly and the complicity of Icann. They could save well over $1 billion every year. And I too have a simple solution to this problem

well said as always!

I officially make my vote for you as replacement of the domain name collector Madame mcpeerson.

who with me!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

The speculation re long term (get rid of any caps) and short term (divert attention from Veerisign to domainers) reasons why they made the blog post both make sense.

However, when I think about it, it is strange that they want the freedom of the ngTLD registries to have no caps. I bet any of the ngTLD registries would jump at the chance to change places, give up variable pricing to get a stable,highly respected, huge domain registry where your operating costs were way less than the money you get, even without increases, for them.

I was wondering how Verisign was doing profit wise. No expert on reading financial statements, but the fraction that gross profits are of revenue seems astounding to me (2017 is last full statement). Available here:

 

[urlurl]

i wonder what the split of ownership is domainers vs end-users...any guesses?

 

[Leo Angelo]

It appears that Verisign are feeling pretty secure now that they have their 6 year agreement with 4x7% price increases on .com and their stock popped up 18% today. In a blog post today Verisign say:

"Flipping domain names or warehousing them to create scarcity adds nothing to the industry and merely allows those engaged in this questionable practice to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers and businesses." - Verisign today​

Andrew has written an excellent column on it here, or you can read their blog post (I wonder if it will get revised?) here.

As Andrew points out:

Verisign has been catering to this market for years. Sponsoring its conferences, promoting domain investing, creating the very tools designed to let domain investors know which domains to register…and now it wants to pretend it has nothing to do with this “questionable practice”. C’mon.
​

This is almost unbelievable and I can't believe it will not anger many. At least for those of us who were trying to decide whether we call ourselves domainers (not a dictionary term),domain investors, domain service agents, domain experts, domain originators, etc. no longer need to worry about that. We are all scalpers according to Verisign.

Seriously, amazingly insensitive of Verisign.

Bob (grrrr... feeling angry )

ps I always try to find the bright side of everything. A good day for ngTLD and country code extensions I guess?

No company can insult the majority of its customers without losing sooner or later. I have trouble believing that it is a sanctioned tactical move, or part of any strategy. That employee probably went rogue. I expect that they will reconsider and will retract within a month or two, before the NamesCon in Vegas.

 

[pokainc]

I see on twitter some of us expressed our views and pushed back... but so many are commenting on namepros but not pushing back on twitter where there's a more global audience... namepros, as much as I love it is pretty much for domainers.. get out there

 

[domainer111]

On the positive side, it is nice to find a topic that
So what do domainers do that is positive?

Bob

I think we can setup a registrar ourselves and charge say Verisign fee + max ten cents and run it as a co-op. We could then move as a bit more of a block.

How difficult can it be to setup and run a registrar I wonder Bob?

The critical thing is to realise that we have the creation of a commodity here and it's priced accordingly. Speculation accusation is pure emotion talking. Amusing when you think of Verisign seeking premium prices for dot-tv domains.

 

[domainer111]

No company can insult the majority of its customers without losing sooner or later. I have trouble believing that it is a sanctioned tactical move, or part of any strategy. That employee probably went rogue. I expect that they will reconsider and will retract within a month or two, before the NamesCon in Vegas.

It does happen. Doing an Elon perhaps? But it sounds pretty calculated.

 

[offthehandle]

Most all of you complain here, but you should realize that @GeorgeK seems to be the only one who has been working for the RPM working group. He needs support. I don’t own enough valued domains to get involved as anything but observer status, but have invested numerous hours in reviewing the problems.

Anyone else who is observer status, Correct me if I am wrong, but I have watched the Trademark lawyers beat him up, they want to push their domain rights agenda favoring big corporations and who they represent, meanwhile nobody here (not one person this thread) has been involved, George is really vocal. The URS process, UDRP changes, etc. There are some really big issues being discussed.

Sure a couple other stackholders with valuable portfolios are on the mailing list, but few comments that I have seen. And, one major player person mentioned above conflicted with him as well. You all should join the ICANN working groups to voice your concerns.

George even posted this on threads here. Few of you participate, so you might consider getting involved instead of just complaining.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/im...ain-name-legal-rights-to-due-process.1003885/

Nat Cohen posted information on various right protections months ago.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ic...ge-domain-owners-rights.1048344/#post-6420035

 

[Kate]

I think we can setup a registrar ourselves and charge say Verisign fee + max ten cents and run it as a co-op. We could then move as a bit more of a block.

Actually, a few domainers have set up registrars that cater to domainers. For some reason I don't trust them a lot. Maybe it's because they too are competing against their customers.
The prices that we get from mainstream registrars are already rock-bottom anyway. But we still have to deal with the same registry, we don't have a choice.

It's ironic that the NSI monopoly was broken up 20 years ago, but we are now in a similar situation again with Verisign driving prices up, how long will it take to revert to 1995 pricing... Icann has failed its mission and become an impediment to competition. Why perpetuate a no-bid contract. This is just too good a gift.

 

[domainer111]

Actually, a few domainers have set up registrars that cater to domainers. For some reason I don't trust them a lot. Maybe it's because they too are competing against their customers.
The prices that we get from mainstream registrars are already rock-bottom anyway. But we still have to deal with the same registry, we don't have a choice.

It's ironic that the NSI monopoly was broken up 20 years ago, but we are now in a similar situation again with Verisign driving prices up, how long will it take to revert to 1995 pricing... Icann has failed its mission and become an impediment to competition. Why perpetuate a no-bid contract. This is just too good a gift.

Yes it would only be a dollar per domain or something like that. That might make it worth it but it also might not be worth the hassle.