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?

 

[sattanclaus]

As much as I hate to admit it, Verisign is technically correct. We are the very definition of the scalpers: buying things we don't need in order to profit by selling them at a (ridiculously) higher price. People hate us for a reason. Of course stating that we add "absolutely nothing to the industry" is going a bit too far, but the value we bring to the industry is grossly disproportional to the profit we earn or at least expect.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

As much as I hate to admit it, Verisign is technically correct. We are the very definition of the scalpers: buying things we don't need in order to profit by selling them at a (ridiculously) higher price. People hate us for a reason. Of course stating that we add "absolutely nothing to the industry" is going a bit too far, but the value we bring to the industry is grossly disproportional to the profit we earn or at least expect.

The only thing I would say about this is that you could say this about anything in life.

People that own property own it either because they need it or as an investment. No one complains at the number of properties that someone owns. The same problems are present, but they're even more ridiculous... people NEED somewhere to live and could own for a lot cheaper if scalpers (aka people with foresight, money or both) hadn't snapped them all up.

So the question is now, should we feel more sorry for people that can't get a domain for cheap, or those that can't get a home for cheap? Or neither...

 

[namelancer]

buying things we don't need in order to profit by selling them at a (ridiculously) higher price.

What would you call art, antique or collectors of classic cars then who buy these objects as assets for investment purposes?

 

[namelancer]

How is what domainers do is different from the tiered pricing model widely adopted by many registries within the sphere of new extensions where the most valuable of domain name assets either get premium pricing or are reserved by the registry with the intent if being sold to the highest bidder? When it's done on the registry level it's considered an accepted policy that doesn't cause any raised eyebrows!

 

[lock]

Mine are domains used not to their full potential. Domainsused. is such a better term than scalper.

 

[frostify]

People think we're "evil" or doing something wrong when really we're not. You could just replace "domains" with literally any commodity or product such as cars, gold, silver, collectibles, rare stamps, vintage coins, electronics, it doesn't really matter. People buy things and try to resell them, often at a profit. It's been happening for literally thousands of years. It's called "business" and it's not shady or unmoral in the slightest. Domaining is an industry just like any other. People are entitled to sell their personal property, in this case that personal property just happens to be a digital/electronic good.