Intellectual Property Law

GoDaddy Warehousing Domain Names?

By Marty Schwimmer

TechCrunch: "GoDaddy Uses 'Standard Tactics' To Warehouse Domains":

Warehousing and auctioning off expired domain names is not necessarily against ICANN (the governing body over domain name registration) regulations and actually quite a common practice among larger registrars, but the story only gets interesting when you take a look at what goes on behind the transparent part of it. When a valuable expired domain doesn?t sell through an auction on The Domain Name Aftermarket (aka TDNAM, GoDaddy?s auction platform), The Go Daddy Group changes the ownership of the domain to one of its lesser known subsidiaries, Standard Tactics LLC, using Domains By Proxy?s whois privacy service to hide its identity. Next thing you know, that company will start monetizing the domain names using parked domain pages filled with ads and list the domains for resale on TDNAM.

Full post as published by Trademark Blog on December 04, 2008 (boomark / email).