{"id":10,"date":"2016-07-26T18:40:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T18:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/?p=10"},"modified":"2017-02-02T14:22:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T14:22:47","slug":"auctions-markets-for-domains-domain-names-tlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/07\/26\/auctions-markets-for-domains-domain-names-tlds\/","title":{"rendered":"Auctions + Markets for Domains, Domain Names + TLDs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several years ago, one of my friends (who is not a \u201edomainer\u201c per se) made a very insightful remark… \u2013 a remark that I have carried around with me ever since and also pondered over all this time (and indeed, I continue<\/em> to do so).<\/h3>\n

He noted that domain names are not interchangable the way uniform products are \u2013 you can’t replace one domain name with another one the way you can exchange one pair of jeans with another pair of jeans, one rubber duckie with another rubber duckie, one toaster with another toaster or one widget with another widget. Therefore, unlike the market prices we are all familiar with for one ounce of gold or one barrel of oil, domain names belong to an entirely different category of things. The are unique, much in the same way that a painting by Van Gogh or Rembrandt are unique. Just as it doesn’t make sense to switch out a painting made by Picasso with a crayon drawing made by the kid around the corner, you cannot simply exchange or replace health.com with movies.com (or even health.com with health.net, or movies.com with movies.net).<\/h3>\n

This became vividly clear to me earlier today as I was writing a response to a question raised by Michael Berkens (see \u201eQuick Poll How Much Will .Web Sell For In The ICANN Auction On July 27th ?<\/a>\u201c). There, the discussion had become focused on whether the new TLD \u201eweb\u201c is comparable to the generic TLD \u201enet\u201c. Michael did a \u201eback of the envelope\u201c calculation to arrive at $500 million as the value of the \u201enet\u201c registry. I agree with the logic of his argument, but the point I wish to make here is more related to something he included in his remark apparently by chance \/ in passing.<\/h3>\n

He noted that the generic \u201enet\u201c TLD does not offer so-called \u201epremium\u201c domain names \u2013 in other words: that there is no price discrimination (i.e., that all domains are available at the same low price in a \u201eone-size fits-all\u201c fashion). This is not a magnificent discovery, but I do feel it is something very noteworthy nonetheless. This is the way all generic TLD registries price domains, but it is a very rare (or even non-existent) pricing mechanism among the registry operators of the newer proprietary TLDs. Since the proprietors have such an strong inclination to engage in price discrimination, this might (or could<\/em>) even be the<\/em> defining characteristic of the difference between generic TLDs and proprietary TLDs: If there is no<\/em> price discrimination, then the TLD can be called \u201egeneric\u201c; If there is<\/em> price discrimination, then the TLD should be called \u201eproprietary\u201c.<\/h3>\n

Although the motivation to identify a TLD as proprietary originally stems from the sole proprietor’s own engagement in the associated market (consider, e.g., Amazon, Inc.’s engagement in the \u201ebook\u201c market, or Google Inc.’s engagement in the \u201eapp\u201c market, or even Johnson & Johnson Inc.’s engagement in the \u201ebaby\u201c market), I feel this is an \u201eeasy to use\u201c metric<\/em> that seems (to me) to be both valid<\/strong> and reliable<\/strong> in order to distinguish these two very significantly different<\/em> types of TLD.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several years ago, one of my friends (who is not a \u201edomainer\u201c per se) made a very insightful remark… \u2013 a remark that I have carried around with me ever since and also pondered over all this time (and indeed, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[313],"tags":[71,72,84,60,62,63,61,75,76,77,69,70,82,83,73,74,68,66,67,78,79,80,81,87,86,64,65,85],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w79D-a","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/08\/12\/global-languages-andor-classification-schemes-generic-top-level-domains-tlds\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":0},"title":"Global Languages (and\/or Classification Schemes) + Generic Top Level Domains (TLDs)","author":"nmw","date":"August 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Whereas traditional classification schemes (such as the Dewey Decimal Classification [DDC] or the Library of Congress classification scheme [LC]) have primarily been oriented towards topical segmentation of publications published by individual persons or corporate entities, I feel it is now a pretty safe bet that the landscape of generic top-level\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/03\/08\/every-domain-name-is-equally-unique\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":1},"title":"Every Domain Name is Equally Unique","author":"nmw","date":"March 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"There are many factors to consider when choosing a brand name, yet one of the most widely repeated fallacies is that online brands need to be identical to dot com domain names. To a computer, every domain name is equally unique. To a human, the significance of domain names is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "confer"","block_context":{"text":"confer","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/biz\/biz-confer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/03\/08\/dot-com-domain-names-are-almost-all-brands\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":2},"title":"Dot Com Domain Names are Almost All Brands","author":"nmw","date":"March 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"While it is true that nearly all dot com domain names are brands, this does not mean that all brands must be dot com domain names. I would not advise against choosing a dot com domain name for a brand, but there is very little sense in registering a name\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "designations"","block_context":{"text":"designations","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/info\/info-designations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":124,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/03\/11\/owning-up-to-i-own-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":3},"title":"Owning Up to “I Own It”","author":"nmw","date":"March 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In stark contrast to my previous post, let me point out that there are plenty of dictionary-word domains that are extremely successful in the dot com TLD (\"top-level domain\"). Indeed, some (such as Johnson & Johnson's baby.com) are so successful, that the company (in this case J&J) even registered the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "designations"","block_context":{"text":"designations","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/info\/info-designations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":234,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2021\/02\/11\/in-what-we-trust\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":4},"title":"In What We Trust","author":"nmw","date":"February 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"You may recall a post I made a few months ago .. in which I mentioned that \u201cI am not at all proud of the species I apparently belong to\u201d (\u201cI understand that this is very important to you\u201d). Another way of putting this idea is that I have little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":181,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2019\/11\/25\/only-fools-rush-in-to-build-on-top-of-closed-secret-proprietary-platforms\/","url_meta":{"origin":10,"position":5},"title":"Only Fools Rush in to Build on Top of Closed (Secret, Proprietary) Platforms","author":"nmw","date":"November 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week Amnesty International published a report about the online platforms of the leading surveillance giants \u2013 see my brief post about it @ Find News. What I find particularly signficant about the news is not the recommendations for public policy, but rather the recognition of the free markets that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}