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by maxim khesin.
Original Post: Plan for (domain name) spam
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So the latest tech-reporter fodder has been the domain name business (Business20, WSJ). Apparently the newest reincarnation of domain name squatting biz model is search engine arbitrage. The numbers are impressive and scary - as much as 1% of Yahoo!s revenue comes from these shady places. These new squatters are called domainers.
What does this mean to hackers? While they are probably not in danger of looking for pharmaceuticals @ cheapdrugs.com or whatever the natural type-in name is, it means that the cost of holding domain names of any coolness pays for itself with advertising.
What is even more scary is that coolness (well, popularity) data is available to these 'businessman' via keyword ranking tools such as this one from yahoo. Moreover, I have almost no doubt that some of the 'domain registration' sites track names that are not registered immediately (which is how names are commonly researched) and this data has its way of getting to domainers. Proof? There is money in it. Working for an NY financial company that indirectly addresses data leakage problem on Wall Street I take this as an axiom.
Now, given the name-pays-for-itself principle, the next thing is (already happening) - commoditization of domain names. That means that unless you are reddit.com, del.icio.us or Splunk, you have little hope of finding a 'natural' domain name. It is not the worst thing, and will certainly result in some original company names, but I think overall it is going to hurt the startups. Think I am kidding? Paul Graham wrote that they were ready to part with a significant chunk of ViaWeb for a 'better' domain name. Rookie mistake, yes, but most 19-year old startup founders ARE rookies in many ways and this can result in loss of fragile momentum. And in principle a name that uses common words that's related to the product/service being offered is better, as more people will be able to remember it.
I am not going to speak for morality of some of these domainers much. Suffice to say that I think they are smart enough to know what benefit they are bringing to society.
I think the conclusion for hackers should be two-fold. If you think of a domain name that's cool, take it. At $3 bucks per year at yahoo even a starving student can afford it.
Another thought should be some technical way to economicly discouraging domain squatting. As the site content in question is basically spam, and is easily recognizable, and we have such tools as Bayesean filtering and social tagging I think the ground is set for some open-source fun.
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