Bob Parson is taking his fight against abuse of the 5-day domain registration grace period beyond his blog.
Bob Parsons has written a couple blog entries about abuse of the 5-day domain registration grace period. He has named the abuse “domain kiting”, which basically allows people to try domain names for 5 days without paying for them (or longer, by simply re-trying domains in successive 5-day periods.)
Now Parsons is taking his fight beyond his blog. A June 5, 2006 Viewpoint article at BusinessWeek.com rehashes the complaints he’s made on his blog.
Parsons is an interested party in this debate. In GoDaddy’s recent S-1 filing, one of the risks cited by the firm is that domain kiting leads to fewer domains available for registration, which means GoDaddy customers will be able to register fewer domains. (Read more about this in my previous analysis of GoDaddy’s IPO filings).
But is it wise for Parsons to raise a stink about this issue? GoDaddy doesn’t participate in Domain Kiting, but his firm may be guilty of other questionable practices, including cybersquatting on popular brand names. The firm also has a draconian 60 day lockup period on transferring out names with registrant changes.
Just last week Dotster was sued for its alleged part in a domain kiting scheme. The lawsuit had little to do with domain kiting and more to do with registering typos of trademarked names. However, some registrars really are taking advantage of domain kiting. These registrars are smart and may use Parson’s attacks as an opportunity to dig into some of GoDaddy’s questionable practices.
GoDaddy wants domain kiting to stop for the good of its business. But attacking this issue right before its IPO might draw some unwanted attention to the company and its practices.
ParkQuick says
I certainly agree with Bob on this one. The registrars have an unfair advantage and the rest of us are paying for this. Domains don’t actually drop anymore. They *all* get picked up and “tasted” by someone for traffic.
Jim Bob says
DomainKiting.com is now a website and it was registered at GoDaddy by who else GoDummy.com folks.
Editor says
Funny thing was as soon as Bob made his post using the term “domain kiting” I went to see if domainkiting.com was registered…and it has already been snagged 🙂
Martha BizBoz says
So was http://5DayDomains.com , http://FloatDomains.com the same folks as registered http://DomainKiting.com. The company is known as http://GoDummy.com and used to be a GoDaddy reseller.