Domain Frontrunning A Ghost In The Machine (Part 1)
This article is written by Jason Lee Miller who is a WebProNews editor and writer covering business and technology. He talks about domain in this article.
The domain frontrunning issue isn’t exactly an open-and-shut case. In fact, it’s more like an X-Files case. ICANN can’t find evidence the practice really exists, and the one entity who says he has proof won’t provide that proof.
It’s not like enacting policies against ghosts, exactly. You don’t need proof of the existence of frontrunning to enact a policy against it. But in this case, proof might have helped Network Solutions not look so bad.
Last month, NetSol came under fire for automatically registering domains that customers had searched for on their site and then jacking up the price of the domains for a four-day period. NetSol defended the practice as protection against frontrunning, which is the practice of registering a domain someone is searching for and then jacking up the price.
At least NetSol’s protection fee was a set price, $34.99 for four days worth of protection, just until they could return the domain within ICANN’s grace period.
Filed under: Webmasters
