[policy] When Tech Meets Policy...

Wed Aug 15 22:59:17 UTC 2007

On Aug 15, 2007, at 2:55 PM, Barry Shein wrote:
> It seems to me that this should be an issue between the domain  
> registrars and their customers, but maybe some over-arching policy  
> is making it difficult to do the right thing?
>
> Charging a "re-stocking fee" sounded perfectly reasonable. I don't  
> think anyone has any *right* to "domain tasting", that is, to any  
> particular pricing structure. But I don't see why it requires  
> anything beyond some pricing solution as suggested.
>
>> Then my next question is, what reasons are there where it'd be  
>> wise/useful/non-criminal to do it on a large scale?
>
> I'm not sure what the problem is with that except it seems to  
> offend some people's sensibilities.

It costs the registry some money in terms of order entry and all  
that, and there are opportunity costs - if one registrar has a name  
checked out and being tasted by one of his clients, another registrar  
can't sell it to one of his.

PIR (.org) instituted an "excess deletion fee" in late May, which is  
at this point somewhat experimental. The fee is five cents per  
deleted domain if the total number of domains deleted within the 5  
day grace period in a month is greater than 90%.  The idea is that  
there is still a grace period where an individual can correct a mistake.