Question: I would like to rephrase two questions that have been previously asked... NSI is holding on to 1.3 million expired domain names with the idea of auctioning them off instead of putting them back into the registry pool for open registration. What are your thoughts on registrars doing this?

Nominee Replies

Barbara Simons - posted on 2000-10-05 17:35:15 This is a highly questionable practice on the part of NSI because of their current privileged position. Lyman Chapin - posted on 2000-10-04 09:08:46 Not having direct knowledge of what NSI intends to do, I can only say that *if* they are withholding expired domain names in order to auction them, they are at the very least taking anti-competitive advantage of their privileged status. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know whether or not the Cooperative Agreement between NSI and the Department of Commerce (with its many amendments since 1992) or the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (http://www.icann.org/registrars/ra-agreement-12may99.htm) legally prevents NSI from acting in this fashion. However, section I (Business Dealings, Including with SLD Holders) of the RA says that 9. Registrar shall abide by any ICANN-adopted policy prohibiting or restricting warehousing of or speculation in domain names by registrars. Withholding expired domain names sure sounds like warehousing to me. Donald Langenberg - posted on 2000-10-03 19:33:55 I'd need to know more about this case than your question tells me in order to answer it. Emerson Tiller, J.D., Ph.D. - posted on 2000-10-03 16:18:13 While I favor auctions for TLDs, I do not think it is appropriate for NSI to auction off these second level domain names because those rules were not stated up front to the public. Lawrence Lessig - posted on 2000-10-03 04:29:11 If there were competition among registrars, this wouldn't be a problem. But as there is not, it does raise an issue. Is this an explicit policy?