The .XYZ launch has been making headlines for this past week.
But is all publicity, good publicity?
As Rick Schwartz said on Domain Sherpa regarding the registration numbers of .XYZ:
“I’m sorry – that does not count to circulation, OK?”
Aided by 64,693 .XYZ registrations at Network Solutions that are most likely ‘freebies’ to NetSol customers, the total number of gTLDs has surpassed 1,000,000 domains.
Was the XYZ/NetSol promo a brilliant marketing scheme, or an unfair attempt at gaming the numbers?
You decide.
Should the XYZ numbers be considered valid and clean?
- Yes. Every registration counts, even robo-registration freebies (16%, 15 Votes)
- No. If a live, breathing person didn't register the domain, it's not legit (84%, 77 Votes)
Total Voters: 92
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I wonder how many of the 18% (as I write this) who said Yes – the bogus registrations should be considered valid – also believe pro wrestling is real? Might make a good follow-up question (if you pose it, it would also be interested to know what planet they are from).
If the .XYZ registry got paid the normal wholesale price for those NetSol freebies, as the owner claims it did, then the issue is not so clear cut. NetSol had faith enough to buy all those registrations, so that counts for something. It is kind of like how a few years ago Blackberry shipped a lot of their phones to phone stores and counted that as sales all in one quarter, even though it took many months to actually sell those phones to consumers. And also similar to how publishing companies ship lots of books to bookstores, but the bookstores can return any unsold books. In both of those situations it is hard to say what is the right and what is the wrong way to handle the accounting.
So, it is not fair to count all those .XYZ registrations the same as those of other competing registries, but it does not mean they did not happen at all.
Eric – The registrations at Network Solutions did happen, in the sense that a piece of software matched a list of existing domains in customer accounts to .XYZ domains.
The same piece of software, registered these domains and sent out emails, with the requirement to remove the already registered .XYZ domains ONLY if the NetSol customer clicked on a link to disapprove. It is unknown, at this time, what percentage of those forced registrants actually opened or responded to the email, that might have ended in unsupervised or spam mailboxes.
The implications of this method are many, and I will present a couple.
First, this method inflates .XYZ registration numbers artificially. The .XYZ Registry can now claim – and they do claim – these numbers as a metric that gauges success. It’s being used as a metric for the adoption rate of a product that was given away to the consumer for free, and without their request.
Second, the ramifications from an “opt out” process can create complicated situations with legal overtones. While it’s safe to assume that the list of domains was selected and filtered – there are many ‘garbage’ domains that make little sense, or even expiring ones in the .com TLD – it does not mean that registrations of whatever.xyz would not cause problems to their registrants, that never asked for such a domain.
Lastly, if the Network Solutions / XYZ intention was to create a customer base that would be charged a renewal a year from now, the implications would multiply. If these registrants failed to be made aware of this promotion, and did not respond to opt out, a year from now it is quite likely that they would react to any automated renewal charges.
To summarize: if I did not register a domain but a piece of software did without my explicit consent, then the registration should be null and void. ICANN should step in to end such practices. I am sure this will be brought up during ICANN 50 in London.
Ron – People have opinions on anything, regardless of use and that’s fine. The majority of people using common sense can see through the numbers, when analyzed. Also, registration totals mean very little; what matters, is use. It’s easy to lose faith to a product when the metrics are tweaked to paint a particular picture.
For all anyone knows, Daniel could have an agreement to pay a lump sum from another company he owns or use his personal money to make Netsol whole. At the end of the day, if he says he got paid the full wholesale price for each domain, he isn’t specifically saying that he or a related company didn’t foot the bill for those registrations. For an entrepreneur, $10 x 50k domain isn’t a massive amount to make things look fluffed. Getting to a million registrations is another story though!