Re: Petition against DNS squatting

My issue with this is that speculation usually involves a certain amount
of not-insubstantial
risk that the price of item the may fall. In squatting, your purchase
price is fixed and minimal to
the point where you know exactly what the maximal loss is ($10  per
domain or less) and you
pretty much know that what you are buying will be of interest to someone
because it has the
name of some entity that would want to use that domain name or would
want to prevent
someone else from using the name.

Squatting is almost a form of identity theft for domain names
Hypothetical: Imagine someone moving into a new home and finding out
that someone else found
out you are moving in and has requested a new phone number in your area
listed under your name
and is willing to relenquish that name listing for a sum of money. I
think the phone companies
would not allow this kind of name squatting and it should not be
permitted on the internet.

Dean Anderson wrote:
> What you are describing is domain speculation.
>
> In domain speculation, the domains are bought from domain registrars,
> and then later resold to others who want to use the domain for some
> reason of their own--perhaps even for speculation. There is no way to
> say that companies that reserve domain names in anticipation of selling
> the domain later are any different from land speculators who buy land in
> anticipation that it might rise, or grain speculators who buy grain in
> anticipation that the current price is too low and will rise later. The
> speculator takes a risk that the domain/land/grain/whatever will be more
> valuable in the future.  Sometimes they lose that bet; sometimes they
> don't.
>
> The economics of speculation, whether it be in stocks, land, grain, or
> domains, is to increase the amount of capital in the market, improve
> market liquidity and to moderate market fluctuations.  Despite the
> occasional cries of farmers, investors, etc about speculation, it is a
> fact that speculation is an economic benefit to the market that they
> depend on and is benefit to all the market players.
>
> The only thing that would bother me is if a domain registrar engages
> some kind of speculation activity. This would seem to be an unfair trade
> issue, since in that particular case, the activity boils down to
> changing the prices of domain registration on a per-case basis, and
> would be an unfair advantage against other speculators who have to pay
> cash for the domains they speculate on. I don't think that is happening,
> however.
>
> I note that I am not a domain speculator, but do have domains that
> people have offered to buy. I haven't sold; my grandmother used to say
> "if it's worth that to them, it's worth that to me."  I also come from a
> farm background and am heir to a fair amount of farmland and grain,
> whose prices rise and fall partly by the activity of speculators.  When
> buying and the price is high, farmers damn the speculators. When selling
> and the price is low, farmers seek out speculators.
>
> Moral: Don't get too caught up in the 'damning' of speculators. They
> aren't always bad; it depends on the conditions and which side of the
> trade you are on.
>
> 		--Dean
>
>
> On Mon, 22 Sep 2008, Hugo Monteiro wrote:
>
>   
>> Hello all,
>>
>> First of all my apologies for such OT message, but i've come to a point 
>> that i can no longer keep quiet about the subject.
>>
>> I'm only sending this to the list because i'm sure there are others that 
>> share the same anger and frustrations on the matter.
>>
>> I'll spare you about the details about the DNS squatting phenomena, as 
>> i'm sure you all know it very well. The brief text is available here 
>> http://www.petitiononline.com/DNSquatt/petition.html
>>
>> Thank you all for you patience, and again my respectful apologies for 
>> such off topic message.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Hugo Monteiro.
>>
>>
>>     
>
>