Nicolas, et. al.,

 From an economists vantage point there is an interesting wrinkle here. 
Domain names are (ARE) property once one owns them (or rather has a 
lease on them) and as property they can become subject to what a 
municipality would call zoning regulations, i.e., two of them might look 
alike but there are different regulations as to how they can be used. 
The registries are just beginning to figure out that whereas municipal 
zoning regulations depend on some democratic process and accountability, 
domain name zoning regulations are completely up to the registry and are 
another cash cow. The .sucks registry is a case in point.

The .sucks registry is offering a "Consumer Advocate" subsidized price, 
reserved apparently specifically for individuals and not for civil 
society groups or not-for-profit organizations. The price looks 
reasonable at  $9.95 per domain. They will be for purchase in September. 
But, big BUT, such domains cannot point to an owner's own website. The 
can only be used to redirect traffic for that domain to a discussion 
forum on the everything.sucks website (free or for a fee?). Here "use 
zoning' includes the redirect and who knows what restrictions .sucks 
might decide to place on what is posted to everything.sucks, who 
controls that, or whether this will eventually involve additional fees.  
There will apparently be a standard price of $249 for a domain name that 
does not involves these restrictions.

Apart from this specific case, I would expect registrars to exploit both 
their ability to ration names and segment markets, and discover more and 
more ways to subject domain names to "zoning restrictions", usually in 
the name of profits, and probably frequently clothed in the language of 
liability. If there is falling marginal revenue from the extensive 
margin (more gtld's) there is still money to be made from the intensive 
margin, from segmenting the domain name markets within a gTLD.

Sam L. .


On 16/03/2015 1:32 PM, Nicolas Adam wrote:
> Let's say one critic waits out a brand owner's first few moves to buy 
> some of the obvious names with which they are afraid to be criticized 
> with (which is not something I would do right off the bat if I was on 
> of them, mind you, and even if i would be inclined to do it I'd wait 
> for the price to go way down), does anybody know if the critics will 
> be able to know the price he will end up paying *before* he divulge to 
> the .sucks team what is the string he covets?
>
> For example, let's say McDonald.sucks is registered by the fast food 
> chain. Do you guys think that the critic will be able to buy 
> thatyellowandredclown.sucks for an eventually specified/advertised 
> price for various alphanumeric strings under .sucks or do you guys 
> think the .sucks strategic pricing will be able to look at his string 
> request and put forth a specific price for the string?
>
> Please forgive my ignorance of those domaining details.
>
> Nicolas