Something I've wondered... if you publicly say that a domain is for sale and someone has a trademark for it would you automatically lose in arbitration?
Around 1998 I registered a domain. Sony registered a trademark with the same name a few years after that. Someone on a Gmail account asked if he could buy it - I later found out he worked for Sony. I told him no - it's for a game I've been working on. I went on a vacation for a month and when I got back there was a fedex package filled with documents from Sony saying I'm violating their trademark and they'll take the domain.
I got a lawyer and he told me that I shouldn't offer it for sale as that would show the arbitration board that I don't need the domain. But he also told me that in order to fight the trademark it would probably cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. So I could keep the domain but not use it for commerce...
In the end I ended up selling it to Sony but through my lawyer - I never stated it was for sale. But this was early on for domains and I wonder what the process is like now.
It’s interesting that domains apparently are still such a big business, despite how browsers have deemphasized URLs and domain names, and given the prevalence of apps.
(Not quoting the article directly due to HN's auto AI filters)
In "Common mistakes" this article first says not to add this record if you're not actually planning to sell the domain, then says that the record doesn't oblige anyone to do anything, that feels quite weird to me.
This probably means that meeting the minimum price does not guarantee that you would be able to buy it due to other (probably opaque) criteria. For example, the seller might not want to sell to you/your company in particular, but is open to other people/companies.
Interesting, a binding bid might be more useful than this proposed no-op slop.
TLDs like .online actually have a registrar-based dynamic pricing system based on internal rules, like domain size, presence in word lists, plurality, etc... And their distribution of available to taken names is quite good. It's different, which is already good, no one needs yet another TLD with the uncreative allocation system of copying the .com, we need variety, and I feel a binding DNS based offer system might make for a aftermarket-based continuation of the successful .online experiment.
But if the offer is not binding, then it's just an advertisement, no consideration, no contract, unlikely to amount to anything materially different than a 'domain for sale' HTML pages. In fact, if the HTML page has a buy now button, it's effectively an offer that can be accepted just by clicking the buttons and inputting cc info, so it's even better than a non binding DNS record.
Also, let's stop using TXT for everyone, why is everyone such a pussy about actually using record types? Do we really need every tool to be compliant out of the box? What's wrong with forcing vendors that want to be compliant to actually write like 20 lines of code and formally implementing support for the feature?
I don't get the point, if someone is selling a domain the only content on the site will be advertising that. And you can bet people will forget to delete or not update the record as needed, making it kind of useless.
A parked domain would potentially make more money hosting AI generated “content” to improve its SEO and passive ad revenue. That’s why invested interests have pushed for this side-channel “For sale” sign.
my slop detection instinct is so good that I can tell it's slop before even clicking the link. I precogged the neon colors of the website, the pill modals, the 'it's not X, it's Y', the emdashes...
Something I've wondered... if you publicly say that a domain is for sale and someone has a trademark for it would you automatically lose in arbitration?
Around 1998 I registered a domain. Sony registered a trademark with the same name a few years after that. Someone on a Gmail account asked if he could buy it - I later found out he worked for Sony. I told him no - it's for a game I've been working on. I went on a vacation for a month and when I got back there was a fedex package filled with documents from Sony saying I'm violating their trademark and they'll take the domain.
I got a lawyer and he told me that I shouldn't offer it for sale as that would show the arbitration board that I don't need the domain. But he also told me that in order to fight the trademark it would probably cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. So I could keep the domain but not use it for commerce...
In the end I ended up selling it to Sony but through my lawyer - I never stated it was for sale. But this was early on for domains and I wonder what the process is like now.
Are you allowed to share how much (roughly) you sold it for?
Not too much... $30K plus all legal fees I had paid.
It’s interesting that domains apparently are still such a big business, despite how browsers have deemphasized URLs and domain names, and given the prevalence of apps.
RFC: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc10023.html
Thank you, for a moment I wondered why a specification was being written by AI.
(Not quoting the article directly due to HN's auto AI filters)
In "Common mistakes" this article first says not to add this record if you're not actually planning to sell the domain, then says that the record doesn't oblige anyone to do anything, that feels quite weird to me.
This probably means that meeting the minimum price does not guarantee that you would be able to buy it due to other (probably opaque) criteria. For example, the seller might not want to sell to you/your company in particular, but is open to other people/companies.
I can have something for sale without an obligation to sell it (depending on offer terms, including price).
Interesting, a binding bid might be more useful than this proposed no-op slop.
TLDs like .online actually have a registrar-based dynamic pricing system based on internal rules, like domain size, presence in word lists, plurality, etc... And their distribution of available to taken names is quite good. It's different, which is already good, no one needs yet another TLD with the uncreative allocation system of copying the .com, we need variety, and I feel a binding DNS based offer system might make for a aftermarket-based continuation of the successful .online experiment.
But if the offer is not binding, then it's just an advertisement, no consideration, no contract, unlikely to amount to anything materially different than a 'domain for sale' HTML pages. In fact, if the HTML page has a buy now button, it's effectively an offer that can be accepted just by clicking the buttons and inputting cc info, so it's even better than a non binding DNS record.
Also, let's stop using TXT for everyone, why is everyone such a pussy about actually using record types? Do we really need every tool to be compliant out of the box? What's wrong with forcing vendors that want to be compliant to actually write like 20 lines of code and formally implementing support for the feature?
> why is everyone such a p**** about
We can do a lot better than using non-inclusive language like this. There are better ways to express the underlying concept.
“This domain is somewhat worn.” -UO joke
Wonderful. Another tool for domain campers. Just what standards bodies should be spending time on…
I don't get the point, if someone is selling a domain the only content on the site will be advertising that. And you can bet people will forget to delete or not update the record as needed, making it kind of useless.
A parked domain would potentially make more money hosting AI generated “content” to improve its SEO and passive ad revenue. That’s why invested interests have pushed for this side-channel “For sale” sign.
This is what really sucks about domain names
my slop detection instinct is so good that I can tell it's slop before even clicking the link. I precogged the neon colors of the website, the pill modals, the 'it's not X, it's Y', the emdashes...
It's indeed written by Claude, like most of the website: https://github.com/jdevalk/specification.website/commit/99b1...
From now on it's the publishers who have to solve a captcha.