Agree with most what stocdoctor said.
And yes, as strange as it seems, the bwilson guy *DOES* have a point.
I know it's a difficult line to draw, especially for people like domainers, after all we profit from knowledge about expired domains etc, knowledge that the general public still doesn't have so one could argue that what most of us do is "unethical" as well.
As said, it's difficult.
Where i think it's getting really unethical is this:
- The kiting game in general, registrars participating in it in particular and especially when it's about *millions* on a daily basis.Plus ICANN doing zilch about it.
- Companies like ireit, buydomains, even good old yun yee before his sale that own like 400,000 names and more.
- Exclusive deals between registrars and drop catching services that make domains their exclusive property.
While most of the business above menioned and alikes are conducting might be perfectly legal (minus the usual under the table deals), i still consider it to be unethical.
Why?
Because these things have an impact on the internet as a whole.
If domains don't drop anymore because drop services have exclusive deals with registrars it hurts the "public domain" aspect of the internet.
Remember, domains are still not owned but only "rented" as long as you pay the annual renewal fees, and there's a reason for it.By exclusive deals with drop services in reality it means instead of registrants it's now the registrars and drop services that have exclusive control over names that otherwise would have been dropped.
Kiting:
Kiting hurts the internet as a whole in the same manner, if not more.
It's not even the fact that registrars participating in it gain unfair monetary advantage because of the exclusive return policy privilege they have, but more important it results in millions of names not being available *although* no one paid for them and these names being not available *constantly* because registrars can repeat the game over and over with the very same names which means they can keep the names forever without ever paying for them (minus the short one second time period when they return the name to the registry just to rereg it seconds later).
Ireit,Buydomains etc:
Yes, i consider a single company owning like 400,000 domains to be hurting the internet.As said above, perfectly legal but legality isn't my point at the moment anyway - it's just about ethics.And contrary to popular belief, things that are legal might still be unethical.
I would be all for ICANN regulations that only allow a limited number of domains to own per person/company, limitations on registry refunds and a policy that forbids exclusive deals between registrars and drop services,.i.e. a policy that says if a name expires/deletes, it *has* to drop.
I very much applaud nominets move to restrict kiting with .co.uk names.
I wish there was a lobby that would force ICANN to do the same.
I know it's all wishful thinking on my part because ICANN is corrupt, and as said it's a fine line where the actual unfairness begins depending where you yourself are standing at but although i consider myself to be some kind of domainer i don't agree with destroying the public domain aspect of the internet.