Predatory Registrars

[mandy]

From Frank Schilling's new Seven Mile blog:

I firmly beleive that the largest high quality domain "registrants" [domainers] in 5 years time will be "retail" domain registrars who go out of their way to make renewals difficult.  These folks will be skimming the good expiring names off the top from poor name managers and domainers who give up.  Good domain names don't expire anymore.  Most registrars park names before they go into redemption-grace (RGP).  They monitor traffic/revenue and then take-over and renew those which are generic or have traffic; subverting the RGP/Deletion process. These registrars slowly build their domain portfolios week after week, month after month, year after year.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not against registrars 'holding names' (in fact, the point of this post is to encourage hard working 'domainers' to get their own ICANN accredited registrars as management tools for their names).  What I am against is a "retail registrar" luring people in with low cost renewals and the siren call of safety,  only to turn around and start closing in the walls by getting into the same business as their registrant masters...

full article: http://frankschilling.typepad.com/my_web...regis.html