Drop list consultation

[Aaron Clifford]

If that's what you feel then good luck, if only it was that simple.

 

[super-whois]

These registrar 'tags' all have to have unique operators, entities or persons fronting them and someone to whom any domain names they catch are registered. They also need to be financed and managed. They can't all belong to the same person or entity because if they did I believe their EPP create quotas would be linked. It was only with the ROR release where quotas were not linked across credit accounts. In addition many such registrars require someone to provide them with a hosted drop catching system to even be able to operate as drop catchers because they are incapable of producing this sort of system them self. At the moment DAC hosts provide that for a great many registrars.

I accept there is an open ended debate about whether exponentially more non-linked registrar 'tags' providing more EPP Creates would really introduce much of a gain beyond just one, based on the assumption of a drop cycle involving unique drop times for each domain name being published. If only a single domain name drops at any given timestamp and if one has developed a new script which can deal with the time syncing and time offsets better than most others I am unsure how sending many more EPP Creates would be much of a benefit.

I also don't believe there is already a firm decision of an outcome. The idea of publishing drop lists with exact and unique domain name drop times seems to negate the requirement for many to make a significant number of DNS queries and DAC queries for both accurate list building and domain name drop catching. The live DAC might no longer need to be maintained and the complaints about technical flaws with its operation in respect of domain name drop catching would probably cease. The delayed DAC could be maintained for retail register web site "name spinners" and other operations.

Given I don't believe there is already a firm decided outcome, the consultation that is currently open affords anyone the opportunity of putting together alternative suggestions. That could even be to leave things as they are. Of course one needs to be able to properly justify and explain ones views and opinions. One can't simply reply with "leave it be" and expect to be taken seriously! Other *hypothetical* options that I am pulling out of the air might include, for example, publishing approximate drop times instead of specific ones thus still requiring some level of checking, suggesting Nominet switch to using the EPP check command rather than the DAC, limiting participation in drop catching to registrars that sign up to using a special EPP hostname (similar to the ROR) and potentially making that chargeable per annum or per month (flat fee, no tiered access) replacing the current annual fee for the DAC. What might a reasonable monthly fee, for using a drop catching only EPP hostname which might make multi tagging more unattractive, be? Auctions are clearly out of the question. I believe well thought out responses will be taken seriously. If you don't, okay.

I spot a David Thornton.

 

[meslam123]

It's very obvious top registrars want to take a large cut from drop catching and all consultation Bullshit just an excuse to give them the right

David, keep arguing in Nominet forum, no need for your opinions here.

 

[Whois-Search]

I think you missed the point. The amount of people entering wouldn't increase - just the tags. If each tag gives you a 1% increased chance, for example, then people who multitag would weigh up the cost of new tags against the increased chance rate and likely selling price of domains.
Anyway this is all hypothetical - we have no idea what nominet are going to do. Just they have *never* introduced anything that has been beneficial for anyone except themselves and the top 5 tags.

Maybe we should all start applying for extra tags right now so Nominet get the point ?

Each tag has six EPP connections...The name you put first on each EPP thread has a chance of getting through Nominet’s firewall at a set drop time.

During the ROR drop a Bulgarian SEO company http://tool.domains did this tactic and got some of the most contested names:

https://forum.nominet.uk/forum/memb...-new-tags-on-ror-uk-testbed?p=12543#post12543

SCHAKALOV - Simeon Chakalov
HKOSTOVA - Hristina Kostova
MIXACTIVITY - Tatyana Karataneva
MDOBCHEVA - Maria Dobcheva
IGEORGIEVA - Ivelina Georgieva
SPANEVA - Severina Paneva
TOOLDOMAINS - Tool Domains Ltd
SUPERSTOR - SUPER STORE BG LTD

 

[super-whois]

From what I've read the intention is it wouldn't be random anymore. Firstly a daily drop list would negate the need for list building which is a waste of resources due to huge numbers of DNS queries and domain name availability checks sent.

Will Nominet release additional useful information in such a droplist from UKDC and traffic profiles for each domain? I suspect not, as this seems to be missing from the consultation.

Can't be sure. Depends how many EPP Create requests are sent at the moment for contested domain names by all registrars who participate and notice a domain names availability. If drop timestamps are published my thinking is that number of EPP creates would reduce.

I suggest that you pop out of the Nominet bubble, and have a look at what "world class registries" actually do. Verisign is undoubtedly such a registry, how many ICANN registrars are there that exist solely for drop catching? The more EPP creates that are sent, the more likely you are to catch the name, SnapNames rent other registrar connections, and apparently only 0.05% (1 in 2000) of the creates they send are successful...

 

[Whois-Search]

I’m well aware how Verisign works (as an ICANN registrar).

They changed the system two years ago:

http://domainincite.com/21891-icann-expects-to-lose-750-registrars-in-the-next-year

http://domainincite.com/22261-icann-terminates-450-drop-catch-registrars

They even filed a patent on Mitigating Registrar Collusion:

https://domainnamewire.com/2017/07/06/verisign-change-expired-domain-drop-catching-game/

And another patent recently on encoded backorders:

https://domainnamewire.com/2019/09/03/verisign-gets-domain-backorder-patent/

Verisign are in a different league to Nominet.

 

[BMW7series]

Will Nominet release additional useful information in such a droplist from UKDC and traffic profiles for each domain? I suspect not, as this seems to be missing from the consultation.

It could be suggested in any consultation responses submitted.

I suggest that you pop out of the Nominet bubble, and have a look at what "world class registries" actually do. Verisign is undoubtedly such a registry, how many ICANN registrars are there that exist solely for drop catching? The more EPP creates that are sent, the more likely you are to catch the name, SnapNames rent other registrar connections, and apparently only 0.05% (1 in 2000) of the creates they send are successful...

You are correct that with the Verisign domain name drops (e.g. .com) being able to send more EPP Creates does assist. However it isn't good enough on its own and the following article may provide you with enlightenment. Pheenix dumped nearly 450 ICANN accredited registrars incorporated for drop catching purposes because even with the additional numbers of EPP Creates that number of ICANN accredited registrars afforded them for use with drop catching, they still couldn't compete with the competition in respect of the software development.

You have also neglected to mention one very important difference, because perhaps you don't know enough about the process. Verisign don't publish the exact drop times of any domain names scheduled to drop. There is a release window (i.e. a period of time during which all the domain names due to be released are dropped that day) and this is why ICANN accredited registrars compete by sending large numbers of EPP Creates to the registry, attempting to register those domain names. If everyone knew the exact times every domain name would be deleted by Verisign one wouldn't need to send anywhere near as many EPP Creates.

 

[super-whois]

You have also neglected to mention one very important difference, because perhaps you don't know enough about the process. Verisign don't publish the exact drop times of any domain names scheduled to drop. There is a release window (i.e. a period of time during which all the domain names due to be released are dropped that day) and this is why ICANN accredited registrars compete by sending large numbers of EPP Creates to the registry, attempting to register those domain names. If everyone knew the exact times every domain name would be deleted by Verisign one wouldn't need to send anywhere near as many EPP Creates.

You have neglected to mention one very important difference, because perhaps you don't know enough about the process. The
order domains are dropped by Verisign is not random, and there are many research papers on this subject. I yet again suggest that you look at what others do, and stop telling others that they are wrong, and only you are right.

 

[BMW7series]

You have neglected to mention one very important difference, because perhaps you don't know enough about the process. The
order domains are dropped by Verisign is not random, and there are many research papers on this subject. I yet again suggest that you look at what others do, and stop telling others that they are wrong, and only you are right.

I am aware that Verisign drop lists are sorted by drop order but they don't include exact drop times. Although times may be able to be approximated, this is still vastly different to publishing absolute drop times as with the Nominet drop proposal. The former requires checking prior dropping domain names in this list to see their status in the overall drop. Knowing absolute times does not.

 

[Siusaidh]

Guys, there would be no need to argue, or even worry about drop times or EPP creates, if Nominet just did the obvious thing and published the droplist, invited £50 bids, which in turn would trigger an auction for a small number of specific domains.

Problem sorted.

They can even nominate a third party to run the auctions if they're sniffy about doing it themselves.

Or if they don't want any financial benefits they could donate all sums above the normal reg price to charity.

The whole droplist concept is insane because it's just not necessary.

 

[BMW7series]

Guys, there would be no need to argue, or even worry about drop times or EPP creates, if Nominet just did the obvious thing and published the droplist, invited £50 bids, which in turn would trigger an auction for a small number of specific domains.

Problem sorted.

They can even nominate a third party to run the auctions if they're sniffy about doing it themselves.

Or if they don't want any financial benefits they could donate all sums above the normal reg price to charity.

The whole droplist concept is insane because it's just not necessary.

Registry run auctions might be the preference of some and seem sensible in some respects but it removes registrars from the process. This is not how the registry/registrar model operates. The registry is only interested in provisioning domain names through registrars. Qualified registrars can compete for domain names and auction them themselves.

 

[Siusaidh]

The Registry/registrar model could continue for the vast majority of domain names, but is there any legal reason why the model could not be modified to allow for this simple method of distributing domain names?

It's staring you in the face.

 

[starbird]

As BMW7series has pointed out this would is not the model. Nominet are not looking to change the model e.g registrars can catch and sell domains if they wish, they are looking to change the way their domains are dropped. Some big registrars do drop catching and many small ones. In the case of the small ones their businesses are pretty much done overnight because many of their buyers are domainers not end users.

I can't comment on the legality if Nominet decided to choose to auction domains off, even through a 3rd party. I am sure competing registrars would take legal action as to why that one particular registrar was chosen given the money that could be at stake. If Nominet auctioned the domains off themselves again some registrars could cite anti competitive actions against them (a monopoly on UK domains basically).

All speculation and I for one do not see Nominet getting involved with auctioning off names. The drop could be staggered over 12 hours in alphabetical order or the whole lot dumped over 2 hours or so like .coms were (not sure if they still are), used to start at 7pm US time.

As I say I don't see Nominet having anything to do with auctioning off names, I don't believe that's what the consultation was about.

Guys, there would be no need to argue, or even worry about drop times or EPP creates, if Nominet just did the obvious thing and published the droplist, invited £50 bids, which in turn would trigger an auction for a small number of specific domains.

Problem sorted.

They can even nominate a third party to run the auctions if they're sniffy about doing it themselves.

Or if they don't want any financial benefits they could donate all sums above the normal reg price to charity.

The whole droplist concept is insane because it's just not necessary.

 

[Ben Thomas]

The thing is, the argument was valid from a universal standpoint until places like DomainLore and UKbackorder started renting out software and "soft-colluding" to catch from a single drop list. If you can't beat them, you may as well join them, I get it. But where are we supposed to draw the line?

 

[RobM]

There are people on this forum who have sold many copies of their scripts. Probably more than people who use my software. Or do you think that everyone wrote their own? As for a 'single droplist' log in at DL or visit catchtiger to see what is backordered. It's the same everywhere. So I don't quite know what this has to do with nominet's consultation about drop lists but I don't see any change in chasing habits coming - it'll just give people a time if that's the route they're going. And if (when) that happens competition will increase drastically for everyone. As usual we'll adapt or drop out the market as has happened for the last 15-20 years. As someone who used my system before going it alone please tell me where I controlled your quota, or where I controlled how/when you chase, or where I controlled *what* you chase? That is what 'collusion' is - there is no such thing as 'soft-colluding'. You either cheat or you don't.

 

[Ben Thomas]

No Rob, you're missing the point I was making. My point is, where do we draw boundaries? We're either for multi-tag collusion or against? We can't be on the fence. What's the difference between DomainCatch users (I'll use Deny's because I don't want you feeling like I'm personally attacking you, I'm not) catching from a single script and GoDaddy etc. employing multiple tags?

 

[RobM]

I'm not missing the point. You used the term 'soft collusion'. There is no such thing. Also people don't get to draw boundaries - they either chase what is dropping that they want or they don't. There are hundreds of tags in the industry chasing and I suspect less than 20 scripts between them. Does that mean they're all colluding? Godaddy employing multiple tags, if all controlled by a single entity, *is* collusion and against nominet T&C. Good luck trying to prove that though if that's the case - nominet don't bite the hands that feed them. They don't even seem to be interested in stopping the known lone-wolf multitaggers that are so apparent to the rest of us tagholders. From what I see though it's the same handful of tags catching every day so it appears that, so far, large registrars aren't interested in the market.

 

[Ben Thomas]

I will leave it at that, but in my opinion there's certain people who are on the fence trying to have their cake and eat it.

 

[super-whois]

As someone who used my system before going it alone please tell me where I controlled your quota, or where I controlled how/when you chase, or where I controlled *what* you chase?

You might not control what clients chase, but you could pool resources of those chasing the same name such that they maximise the chance of one of them register the name successfully, maybe that's what @Katch! is referring to?

 

[Ben Thomas]

You might not control what clients chase, but you could pool resources of those chasing the same name such that they maximise the chance of one of them register the name successfully, maybe that's what @Katch! is referring to?

Exactly that. But I'd rather not get into it. You can't preach what you don't practice I guess is what the moral is.