I have to say, not the first thing that came to mind.
It would be interesting to see how this would map out if you went further to 3,4 and 4,3 domain names. I'm sure there are quite a bit more 4 letter words though, so that would be another thing to sort through.
What method did you use to see if a domain was available? I was never able to find a service that didn't throttle my usage when checking on a large list.
Scripting the nslookup, dig, and host commands is predictable and easy. In contrast, there appears to be no consistency in the output for whois queries, making them infuriatingly difficult to parse reliably.
While not the most accurate way, in my own efforts brute-forcing of DNS name space (I was checking every word in my local /usr/share/dict/words file for possible free domain names), I have found that simple DNS queries are relatively effective and don't raise eyebrows, especially if you use your own name server. Plus, they're much faster than whois queries. Usually resolving domain.tld and www.domain.tld will tell you if the name has been registered with fair accuracy. As an added bonus, you don't have to worry about someone using whois queries to park/squat interesting domains.
I'm appalled that people on HN are casually discussing ways to squat domains.
Have you tried to come up with a good domain name that's not already taken? It's really freaking difficult, because squatter scumbags have taken practically all of them.
There's not much left besides names like "heroku" or "meebo" that are basically just strings of random characters, and working around squatters by concatenating the name you'd actually want with "-ly", "get-" or "-app" is not really a solution.
This is exactly the discussion I expect from HN. It's taking a very methodological approach towards an industry and I approve. I've been in the domain industry for 7+ years now and it's a breath of fresh air to see more people coming to the table with ideas like this (sorry, you aren't the first to use these types of ideas, but I am happy to see more people trying these types of methods).
As far as saying they are squatters and extortionists. I am going to have to call bullshit. Cybersquatting is infringing someone's trademark. Unless the author is buying something to infringe on a mark it is NOT CYBERSQUATTING.
As far as the extortion claim, it's also bogus. You think you deserve some awesome domain for registration fee because you have some idea? Sorry. The internet isn't about that. We all have ideas and there is no objective way domains could be distributed other than a first-come, first-serve policy. Any sort of 'use' based case is far too big a slippery slope to ever be considered.
This sort of attitude seems to be the exact opposite of the author's (which I admire) who has publicized an interesting way to try and find a good domain name on the cheap.
You "refute" his point with a non sequitur, essentially asserting that domain squatters/extortionists aren't scumbags, because there's no good way to ban the practice. But it could still be unsavory even if it's hard to ban.
I wouldn't say that the internet is"about" people just grabbing names and doing nothing with them except demanding payments from people who do want to put up actual sites. That's not really having ideas or doing anything useful for anyone; it surely isn't innovative. It might be profitable, but I don't really see any way to argue it's in the hacker spirit or particularly laudable.
You connect the two extortion and cybersquatting. Again, different things. They can overlap sure, but cybersquatting has a narrow definition. Extortion also does. Buying domains really doesn't meet the definition.
As far as doing nothing, they 'do' something. Most have nameservers and resolve to something.
As far as demanding payments. That's funny, you want something but don't feel obligated to pay. Nobody is forcing you to buy any particular domain. You simply feel entitled for one reason or another.
I think first-come, first-serve is the least worst option and also is in line with the spirit the internet was created. Allowing anyone to compete at minimal cost. Just because you don't get software.com doesn't limit you from selling software. If you really cannot come up with a name or put up some money and buy a decent name perhaps you need to rethink what you're doing.
Implying that domain squatters are scumbags was this much of an assault on your ego?
If you reserve lots of domains and wait for someone to want one of them so bad that he's willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars, that makes you a scumbag.
It's that simple, and it doesn't matter if this specifically falls under whatever definition of "cybersquatting" you want to use.
> As far as doing nothing, they 'do' something. Most have nameservers and resolve to something.
You can't be talking about "parked" domains that resolve to a page full of shit, right? Please tell me that wasn't what you meant.
> As far as demanding payments. That's funny, you want something but don't feel obligated to pay.
Seriously? We do want to pay. We just want to pay the normal price for a domain, and not whatever outrageous amount you feel like demanding for it. Feel entitled?! What the.. Yes, most of us feel "entitled" to being able to buy a domain at market value.
> I think first-come, first-serve is the least worst option and also is in line with the spirit the internet was created. Allowing anyone to compete at minimal cost.
By "compete", do you mean allowing anyone to compete in an auction for a domain you have, and others want?
> If you really cannot come up with a name or put up some money and buy a decent name perhaps you need to rethink what you're doing.
As I said, it's really freaking difficult. An ideal domain name is a .com that's somehow related to your product/service and consists of one or two words in English, maybe with a clever twist. These are the ones that have practically all been taken by scumbags like you.
You should have stopped embarrassing yourself already.
Your price is not based on supply & demand or market value, but just how bad someone wants the domain you're holding, which happens to be a perfect fit for his product or service.
I've actually managed to personally come up with, and get two perfectly fitting .com's for (two of) the products I'm going to make.
Those two domains consist only of words in English too. One of them is cutesy, and the other is clever. I won't tell you the names, though, because that would reveal my real name. But it really was difficult to come up with the names, because of human scum like you.
If you're a "doer", then I don't even want to be one.
That's not applicable because you've done something to the supply, haven't you?
All of your self-centered squealing here has been the result of your fragile little ego getting hurt from being called a scumbag. But that's like me getting upset about someone calling me a person. That's what I am. Scum is what you are.
It's amusing to see your limited ability to understand things. My ego has very little to do with this, if you think calling me a scumbag is what the problem is. I get called worse every day, it doesn't bother me. What irritates me is those preaching about how bad something is without ever being able to offer a better solution other than one that would suit them. They all simply want more for themselves, it's not this perceived injustice that you couldn't get the domain you wanted is a bigger issue. It's not. It's simply your greed.
Of course you will want to turn that around and say it's me being greedy. I've paid large sums for domain names and guess what... I know how to earn more money from it. Welcome to capitalism, quit your bitching and play the game or shut up.
> I get called worse every day, it doesn't bother me.
Really? Every day? I'm curious, why do people call you names? Is it because of domain squatting, and if so, don't you think they might have a point?
> What irritates me is those preaching about how bad something is without ever being able to offer a better solution other than one that would suit them.
Would it make sense for someone to offer a solution that didn't suit them? There could be lots of potential solutions, but I'm not sure we agree on what the problem is.
They could release all obviously squatted/parked domains, for example, and prevent or limit their programmatic reservation. I wouldn't mind an increase in price either, if it made squatting unprofitable, or there could be some requirements for reserving a domain.
> They all simply want more for themselves, it's not this perceived injustice that you couldn't get the domain you wanted is a bigger issue. It's not. It's simply your greed.
Heh. So now wanting a domain is the same as being greedy? Or is it greedy to want a domain that happens to be squatted? Either way, your comment didn't make any sense.
> Of course you will want to turn that around and say it's me being greedy.
Greedy? Most people are, but greed is not really the problem here - it's what you do.
> I've paid large sums for domain names and guess what... I know how to earn more money from it.
I'm sure you do. It's much easier to make money when you have no shame or morals.
> Welcome to capitalism, quit your bitching and play the game or shut up.
It's like being famous. As soon as you have any profile people want to take you down for whatever reason.
'Obviously squatted' - again back to a slippery slope. You clearly don't understand how the markets work either. The best stuff is the most profitable, price increases and such only reduce domain values at the margins. Requirements for registering is a pretty laughable system. Go develop kids.us or .mobi, last I checked they have requirements. Maybe .TV with super high pricing. Sure you can find something available.
You want something for yourself and think a system sucks because it doesn't suit you.
It's what we do. Uh-huh. It's no different than many forms of speculation or real estate investment. People can hate on it all they want, those not making money often do.
No shame or morals - another good argument coming from you. You have no idea what I've done or how I do it, yet of course believe yourself to be all knowledgeable and able to judge. You want to call me scum, but really you're just some disillusioned asshole who falsely thinks they are on some moral high ground . You are unhappy and want to bitch, I see many people just like you every day, incapable of actually doing anything or figuring out solutions. The author of the post takes a system and works with it to meet his needs. I entered this business long after people knew what domains were and were investing in them and was able to figure out profitable ways to invest. Instead of actually understanding the systems and making them work for you, they simply bitch it's unfair for them therefore it's wrong. They don't even understand it isn't unfair for them, they simply are too inept to take advantage.
Probably being pedantic, but it's speculating rather than cybersquatting, IMO. Cybersquatting is grubby, but I think domain speculation is an interesting debate worth having.
Not saying I agree or disagree with you - but - what is your opinion of real estate investors who own parking lots in crowded urban neighborhoods? If you don't think it's the same thing, I would love to hear your argument.
There's no location element in domain names. Also there's an indefinite supply of them unlike real estate.
The problem is that the real estate investor had to buy that land to make it into a parking lot. That's fine. Others had the opportunity to buy the land and do what they want with it. However, domain names are effectively free. This means that instead of 'whoever wants to pay the best price' getting it, it's simply whoever grabbed it first.
In summary, land is priced based on its worth. Domain names are all priced the same at a negligible cost (Initial sale). That's why the domain name system is so broken.
The supply of all domain names is infinite, but the supply of short domain names is definitely finite. That's why it's so damn hard to find good short ones.
It doesn't matter how you get the limited resource first. What matters is whether there is an efficient trading system for such resource. You can always buy a domain name from someone you want if you are willing to pay big bucks.
I'm not sure where this idea of domain names being infinite came from, but it isn't really true[1]. There is a maximum length per top level domain, and also a finite number of top level domains. Until we're allowed to register top level domains, it's going to stay this way. Even then, we will be limited by the maximum allowable characters.
I don't really think it's the same thing. They are making use of the land and providing a service to people (people need to park somewhere), not just trying to sell it to the highest bidder.
In many places there are legal procedures available to expropriate by force land from owners that don't make use of their real estate.
Near where I live the local city council has run a campaign for years to get people to notify them about derelict and unoccupied buildings in order for them to be able to expropriate it and resell or lease it to companies or residents that actually wants to use the land.
This is exactly because it is recognized that buying and holding land in areas where land is a scarce resource is not in the public interest.
The system is broken. It's basically free to register as many domains as you wish.
Personally I've always found that to be a bad idea. How about charging say $500 for domain registration and putting that money into good projects on the net. You'd get far less squatters, people would be more likely to actually use domains they have, and you'd get some revenue to do good work with.
If it cost $500 to register a domain name, I never would have started doing web development. Now it's what I mainly do for a living. I don't think that's the right solution.
You seriously wouldn't have bothered? You can't think of any way on gods earth you could ever afford $500 a year for your domain name? Settling for myname.somecompany.com wouldn't have been acceptable to you?
I would have. But I would only have bought domain names for things that would actually make money, or be worth it in some other way.
The currently system, you have maybe 5% of registered domain names actually in use. The other 95% are being sat on by extortionists trying to extract money from people for them.
SSL certs cost more than that.
Can you think of any other system where you can buy something for a nominal price, and then sell it for what it's actually worth?
Only the people that need one, which isn't everyone.
And they pay for it now because it's established that the internet is essential for doing business, but if domains had cost US$500 from the start we might not be in that position now.
Hiking up domain name costs makes sense only because we live with an internet that was developed without ridiculously high domain name costs.
Raising the cost now would be futile - it would actually make all the people hoarding domains a huge pile of money.
The domain whores don't like reason :/ I don't know, I can't think of any other situation where you can 'register' something for a nominal fee, and then sell it for what it's actually worth.
It's pretty much like claiming "new" land, to use an American analogy - you pay a small administrative fee, that's all.
Is it ethical to claim as much land as possible, for the sole purpose of selling it in the future to people who had the misfortune to come later? It's clearly legal, but it's also abuse of a common good.
Great post, you've taken something that I've always thought of as random prospecting and applied a methodology to it. I am quite envious of your critical thinking skills.
I'm glad he didn't. Purchasing domains in hopes of selling them to people who want to _actually_ utilize them for legitimate purposes (read: not spam) is one of the most irritating and selfish practices around. People who do that are contributing nothing by skimming off of other peoples' ventures.
I generally agree (and hate domain spam), but I've also wondered if it's not the same as speculation of any kind. The original domainers found this resource the rest of us were underpricing hugely. Same as property - it doesn't go to the person who has the best use of it, it stays with whoever's (great, great) grandfather found it first, or bought it cheap.
I wish it weren't true - many times I've wanted a perfect domain to find it taken up by some loathesome spam page.
There's a huge difference though, you can't buy thousands of plots of land at once for zero-investment cost ( aka domain tasting - did ICANN ever fix that?) and then see if someone expresses interest. Most people who speculate property invest more time, energy, money and research than the average domain-squatters do.
Furthermore, stuff that's common practice amongst squatters is expressly forbidden in other areas. At least in the US, you'd have a very difficult time trademarking an software company spelled "Microsoff", but typo-squatting is _rampant_.
There's a massively disproportionate amount of risk/reward for property speculation than there is for domain 'speculation'. If I find out about some new product coming to market and squat the domain - the company could potentially lose a huge amount of revenue, whereas I'm risking the cost of a latte.
I was thinking more of great grandpappy walking up to an area out West and saying "mine!" (possibly with a small payment) - it took a while before everything was owned and more rational prices were set by the market. The earliest domainers had a similar experience - no owners, so they didn't have to buy it from anyone.
In the end, any resource that is limited, underpriced and has some ability to produce income will get nailed by speculators sooner or later, and the price will rise.
Yes, ICANN has fixed domain tasting. No refunds for registration fees.
Typo-squatting is of course unethical. I would not say that the practice is rampant. A recent report by Verisign showed that it is declining and really is not prevalent. It's also not very profitable. PPC revenue has hit rock bottom in recent years. Talk about risk.
There is risk it seems because there is a high learning curve for what a quality domain name is. If you watch the industry, research keywords and learn to evaluate domain names you can do very well.
Domain Tasting was a problem for a few years, but let's be honest, 99.99% of the best stuff was taken beforehand. Domain tasting focused a lot on expired names, monitoring DNS/whois and frontrunning. It was but a hiccup in the timeline of domaining.
As far as punishment, looking ACPA, 100k penalty for cybersquatting. That's taken out some of the biggest offenders (see IREIT).
There is reselling to other investors:
dnforum.com, namepros.com, domainstate.com plus many of webmaster/IM boards have domain areas (ie. digitalpoint)
Marketplaces:
sedo, afternic
and plain ol' contacting people who might be interested via email, phone, letters, walking up to their store.
If they're Australian domains and you have a portfolio you want to offer, you could try Drop.com.au who sometimes do specific auction sales in addition to their daily droplists. I buy there now and then.
You can lay claim to a .com.au if the domain name is "closely and substantially connected" to you as the registrant. This includes things like selling a product or offering a service with that name.
auDA ruled a few years back that "domain monetisation" falls within "a service that the registrant provides" (with a few exceptions).
Sales/transfers of domains were a bit painful back in the day but have been relaxed now. There are restrictions (from memory, you can't register a domain and then sell it within six months) but it does make speculation a bit easier for domainers.
I have to say, not the first thing that came to mind.
It would be interesting to see how this would map out if you went further to 3,4 and 4,3 domain names. I'm sure there are quite a bit more 4 letter words though, so that would be another thing to sort through.