Are you fed up by the hogging of premium domains by individuals who are sitting on them for the past 20 years, without as much as a landing page?
You are not alone.
Verisign, managers of the .com and .net namespace are taking the pulse of the industry, and they might have a solution for this mass drainage of available dot .com domains.
“After NamesCon and the apparent threat of gTLDs, we are exploring the possibility of domain recycling in order to rejuvenate interest in the dot .com,” said company spokesman, Jefferey Pogues.
“Initially, there will be a form of volunteer recycling, and we have established a tiered pricing for domains that were registered in 1995 and prior but aren’t used still,” added Pogues.
Using the volunteer method, domain owners are invited to return the domains to the Registry, at a fixed rate, determined by industry evaluation specialists, such as Estibot and Valuate.
“The secondary phase will include mandatory recycling of dot .com and dot .net domain names that aren’t being used actively, a process that will stimulate our economy, no doubt!” exclaimed Jefferey Pogues.
Despite its controversial approach, news of the domain recycling process was seen as positive by NamePros members aged 17 and under:
“Dude. This is the best news ever. I can finally have dibs on premium .com domains that were taken by oldies before I was born!” exclaimed Pete Frampton, who goes as jaxxpete on NamePros.
“Think about it. I can finally own my father’s dot .com domain! Sweet!” added Frampton, who finishes high school in 2016 and already owns his own app company, on a .IO domain name.
Verisign’s plan is expected to pass the testing phase at the end of March, just in time for Domainfest 2014.
