Parasites of the Domain Name Industry

Some parts of the domain name industry exist simply because people don’t know better. Ignorance is a job creator. The information is out there, but it is obscured by a relentless parade of advertising, promotion and marketing. The truth gets lost behind a smokescreen of noise and deception. Indeed, there appear to be increasing numbers of people who are employed just for that purpose. Just look at ICANN and its new gTLDs -- “You are creating a business, like derivatives on Wall Street, that has no value,” said Esther Dyson, a technology investor who served as the founding chairwoman of ICANN. “You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing...”(Dyson in the New York Times). "The thing is, we are not running out of domains. This is a “way for registries and registrars to make money,” says Dyson. She also points out that “there are huge trademark issues. I just think it is offensive. If I own a trademark, now I have to go register it on 2,800 domains. It will create a lot of litigation” (source: TechCrunch). “'The public at large, consumers and businesses, would be better served by no expansion or less expansion' of domains" said Jon Leibowitz, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in the New York Times. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure any of this out, but ICANN insiders and vested interests got greedy.

Now, thanks to ICANN, businesses globally will have to pay an "ICANN tax" perpetually by having to employ armies of  trademark enforcement lawyers, waste money registering and renewing unwanted and unneeded domain names for "defensive" purposes, pay "protection" money to TMCH -- the list goes on -- I think you get the idea.

Many of the people who hang around, or within ICANN, and at least half the pundits out there are worthless, self-promotional weasels who do nothing good for domain name registrants. As for the rest, well you need to make up your own mind about them.

You need to distinguish between people who provide analytical insight about a specific topic that requires expertise and the time-wasting idiots who impose a tax on the rest of the world by blasting out a relentless firehose of meaningless drivel. The former have value, the latter are useless.

-- Domain Mondo (with credit for inspiration to Barry Ritholtz)