Registrars sue ICANN over waitlisting

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 13:26:37 -0500
> From: "Kevin G. Barkes" <kgb () kgb com>
> Subject: Registrars sue ICANN over waitlisting
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Reply-to: "Kevin G. Barkes" <kgb () kgb com>
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> http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/2235661
>
> Embittered Registrars Sue Embattled ICANN
> By Susan Kuchinskas
>
> A coalition of domain name registrars filed a lawsuit Tuesday against 
> Marina del Rey, Calif.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 
> Numbers (ICANN) seeking to block the launch of VeriSign's (Quote, Company 
> Info) global waiting list for domain names.
>
> A group of approximately 23 URL registration companies calling itself "The 
> Domain Justice Coalition" say ICANN's approval of the proposed wait 
> listing service, or WLS, violates ICANN's terms of agreement with 
> registrars and gives VeriSign an unfair advantage.
>
> Under an agreement with ICANN, VeriSign keeps track of the registered 
> owners of domain names that end in .com and .net. Registrars collect money 
> from consumers (which can be either individuals or businesses), handle the 
> digital paperwork involved in assigning them their chosen domains, and pay 
> a $6 registration fee to VeriSign. Registrars compete with each other on 
> price and promotions such as two years' worth of registration for the 
> price of one.
>
> It gets trickier when a consumer wants a domain name that's already taken. 
> Many registrars offer what they call back-order services. For a fee, the 
> registrar will keep track of when the desired domain name will expire and 
> try to immediately register it for the customer.
>
> Each day, domain names are deleted from VeriSign's registry in a batch of 
> about 25,000, according to Christine Jones, general counsel for GoDaddy, a 
> coalition member. The registrars know the names that will be deleted but 
> not the actual time the deletion will take place.
>
> "We match up our back orders and try to get those names. It takes 
> fractions of a second to go from delete to register," Jones said. "Each 
> registrar writes its own software that keeps pinging the registry. The one 
> that happens to ping the registry immediately after deletion wins the 
> backordered name."
>
> Because of this process, Jones told internetnews.com consumers often 
> backorder the same name with multiple registrars. Registrars also buy 
> desirable names that are names but not backordered with an eye to 
> reselling them.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> KGB
>
> -----
> Kevin G. Barkes
> Email: kgb () kgb com | Web: www.kgb.com
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