Is this business ethical?

[Mike Cruz]

I always find the real estates speculation a very good analogy. Some "investors" buy up downtown condos in big cities, don't even care to rent it out, and wait for the price to go up in a booming/bubbled market. It's CAPITALISM! Of course, Capitalism itself is not exactly the most ethical thing on earth.

yeah, real estate is a much better analogy...

[britishbulldog]

Hi

whether your domain is tm related or not, does not preclude you from being seen as a squatter.

the negative labels that are put on domainers and the industry, is because they hold the registration to "key" domains.

i have been told in person, by phone and email, that i was squatting on plenty of 'generic' domains that potential buyers wanted, simply because the price was higher than they wanted to pay.

in respect to domains vs realestate -

you can hold the registration on a generic domain and a potential risk still exists.
where someone could claim infringement on parked domains when ads are displayed that reflect another entities brand.

that is one reason why many ppc services enabled users to block certain ads.

whereas in realestate, you won't loose your property unless you default on the loan or don't pay property taxes.


imo...

Spot on i lost a generic because the sedo dumb ass parked pages infringed on their TM although i asked them not to,so don't trust parking companies.!

[katherine]

It's just as ethical as being a stock or real estate broker.

Domaining is even more ethical
Nobody has ever died because they couldn't get a domain.

On the other hand people are homeless because they were evicted from their homes by real estate managers or their enforcers.
Investing in stocks/finance is no better, as your investments can have harmful consequences to somebody, somewhere. Example: investing in halliburton...

The choice is easy for me.

[Bodis.com]

Most successful businesses do something at some point that is unethical.

Even Google. Google powers domaining community. If you consider domaining to be unethical, then Google is unethical as well.

Almost everything in this world can be considered unethical. Religion is unethical.

[Mike Cruz]

Religion is unethical.

qft

[Carter]

My fat cheeseburger I'm eating now is unethical...not domaining!

[Domainator]

the question of "ethics' comes up when you consider if domaining is squatting, simply for the purpose of re-selling for a higher price.

to those who don't own the domain that they want and you want big bucks for it...to them the practice is or may seem unethical.

plenty of legal arguments/decisions have been brought/made against domainers, based on that premise alone.

the other issue is whether some domainers are ethical or not, in their approach to making money or doing biz....either by deception, misleading info, stolen domains, selling domains they don't own, faked traffic, faked pr, spam, etc.

imo...

No different then me sitting on vacant land waiting for the prices to rise before I decide to sell it...

To anyone that feels it is unethical to own domain names, please transfer them to me and your burden will be lifted!

[randomo]

I believe if certain boundaries are not crossed then domaining is absolutely ethical.

Well, that's true, but it begs the question ... if "certain boundaries" are not crossed, then almost any human activity is ethical. Each person must decide what those "certain boundaries" are.

In the case of domaining, I think - and I know I'll be loudly denounced for this - that a lot of parking is unethical. Why? Because the typical domainer's focus seems to be, "I'm making $xx per day from parking this domain", without really exploring how that money is made.

For instance, if you have a good H1N1 / swine flu domain parked right now, you've probably got click money rolling in. But what are your visitors clicking on? Is it some scam that's going to cost them money for a worthless product - or worse yet, for one that harms their health? I just did a Google search for "swine flu", and among the ads that appeared were that several that looked suspicious - e.g., "Doctor's Life Saving e-book $33 - Prevent Infection Naturally" and "Home treatment and prevention Herbs for flu, swine flu. Learn How". I'd wager that the information these folks are selling is worthless and/or dangerous.

The only domain I ever owned that made more than pennies a day was a "stimulus checks" domain that I got for <$5 on eBay. The moment I parked it, it started bringing in $15-$20/day. I was excited - but when I checked out the ads that people were clicking on, many of them looked questionable/scammy. I sold that domain to another DNF member pretty cheap, in the hope that he'd get it into the hands of a worthwhile end user (I've had little success with end-user sales).

Some categories of products & services seem less prone to scams than others. Still, since anybody can buy Google ads, you never know what you're helping to sell, or how honest those sellers are. As a result of these concerns, I'm shifting more and more of my domains from parking to affiliate ads for reliable companies (generally Amazon - and some people may question the ethics of that, since I'm helping put small local bookstores out of business).

Meanwhile, people who profit from "sin" domains - porn, gambling, & so forth - may not consider the personal & social consequences of the services they're promoting. Or they may excuse it by figuring, "These people were going to spend money on those activities anyway, so I might as well profit from it." (Or they may not view these activities as "sinful" ... "Even though most people who play poker online will lose money overall, maybe it's worth it to them for the entertainment", and so forth. But however small-L libertarian our views may be, how do we really feel about promoting more use of paid-gambling & online porn services?)

Sure, you can try to eliminate some of these problems by massaging your parked domains' keywords & so forth ... but how many of you really consider the ethics of parking, as opposed to just the potential profits? (I'm not trying to nag or scold, just encouraging people to think about what they're doing.)

OK, bring on the outraged reactions ....

[south]

Sure, you can try to eliminate some of these problems by massaging your parked domains' keywords & so forth ... but how many of you really consider the ethics of parking, as opposed to just the potential profits? (I'm not trying to nag or scold, just encouraging people to think about what they're doing.)

You bring up some good points. One way to be (relatively) sure your ads are for legitimate products / services is to actually develop them. Be the end user. The more I see PPC paying less & less, and as little as we know about our percentages being paid from adsense / etc, whether we are being scammed by the affiliate programs, and so on, the more I consider selling actual products or offering services directly from some of my domains.

With that said though, there is no way we can possibly police all the ads on our domains. You can negate some of the possibility of scams by choosing your advertising network / affiliate relations carefully, but at some point, you have to trust that everything will straighten itself out by carma / ethics / God / the rule of law. You can't save the world or people from themselves.

[tonyfloyd]

My fat cheeseburger I'm eating now is unethical...not domaining!

Mangiare!!...you fat bastard!...lololol....

[blogcrash]

Super-ethical.
People killing other people everyday...what's the problem to sell some domains?

We are saints.

Real thugs are banks and lobbies.

I like this point of view

[xr3dpill]

I think even some TM typo's are ethical...

example: I used to run an Internet Sales department for an Infiniti Dealership (which I assure you is much more unethical than domaining, even at a luxury dealership.) and I reg'd a lot of typo's of our domain name. I also started registering other local Infiniti dealers typo's. The most common one being Infiniti as "Infinity".

Now that I no longer work there, if I offer these domain names to these dealerships who have no experience with internet marketing, are losing traffic, and never would have thought to register themselves, why am I not a freelance internet marketing consultant, asking above the $10 cost of the domain as fee's for my services?

Now compare that to a Nissan dealership I worked at. The dealership_name.com was registered 1 week before they filed their DBA paperwork... obviously an inside job as the name was not generic, and obviously the dealership had full intent on registering it. Of course they got a request for purchase for $5k later on. (and no it wasn't me)


Two completly different scenarios in my opinion, one seems unethical, and one just seems like the nature of the beast. (www)

[PokerPie]

It depends on how you domain. If you primarily buy and park TM or typo domains then no, I do not think it is ethical. If you buy and hold or buy and sell generic domains then I think it is perfectly ethical.

The only place where ethics come into play is when you are deceiving or even wasting the time of web surfers. So I guess parking as a whole could be viewed as semi-unethical - however if you are properly targeting your landing pages you should be actually helping visitors in many cases.

Ah another way it is unethical is when you try and take advantage of newbies or end users by charging too much! So basically every seller on sedo! I don't do this, I just look for a fair return on my investment so I view what I do as perfectly ethical, outside of a couple of TM domains I own.

[katherine]

The auction houses actively pimping up blatant TM domains: now that is unethical.

[tristanperry]

Domaining is completely ethical. Many of the critics say things like "Bah, what's the point of owning a domaining if you don't have major plans for it?" or simply "That person is charging $x,xxx for their domain, what a rip-off!!". But usually both of these arguments stem from jealously that those people didn't get there first.

Owning domains is, IMO, owning virtual 'real' estate - I agree in what was said earlier in that it's a bit like owning stocks (just safer, and with much higher ROIs )

Hey! Finally Wikipedia is reflecting a neutral article about domaining! A couple of months ago they referred to domaining as "cybersquatting".

How did this happen? I remember there was a debate about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domainer#domainer

They changed a couple of months ago.

Although it was a massive struggle.

Domainers started asking (on the talk page) why 'domainers' re-directed to 'cybersquatters'. The nazi admins there said "You must provide sources" (etc). So people given a bunch of sources, from DNJournal up to CNN and Fox. The nazi admins came back with "They aren't credible sources". ^^

After a while, I think another admin must have stepped in and finally the change was put into place.

Is worrying to have seen how Wiki was rubbishing an entire industry due to a couple of biased, power-mad (and illogical) admins.

[accent]

re: Wikipedia - that is EXACTLY the situation with another topic that I am following, totally unrelated to domaining. They pull the "not credible sources" line for everything that does not meet their bias.

Randomo - don't be so quick to condemn natural remedies (as many in the conventional medical field do, although little unbiased research has been done). Great-Grandmother was just as smart as you and I are. (Granted, $33 for an ebook is questionable.)

As for the main topic, we are buying and selling ideas, regulated in an infinitely expandable framework. Nobody is denied a domain regardless of how many are bought by speculators. No forests are destroyed, no species extinct-ed. It takes longer for a search to come up null than to find and load a parking page so we are saving people a bit of time. I do not see where domaining causes harm.

But by itself I don't see where it helps anything either. Our money goes to Verisign, GoDaddy and (ulp) Snapnames. Not where I would prefer to put it. We stand between those who have an idea for a website or business and their choice of name with our hand out, wanting our cut. Economists would say we make the market more efficient, placing domains more often with those who have the most resources, but it angers those who lose.

Ultimately it seems to me a wash. But then you add the individual. We control important avenues of communication and make choices regarding them. Sometimes those choices we make can be very positive.

[iestates]

I was recently asked "do you believe what you do is ethical?".

I believe if certain boundaries are not crossed then domaining is absolutely ethical.

I would be interested in your thoughts on this topic.

I'm surprised you even acknowledged this as a legitimate question. I would have been pissed off.

[urlurl]

the key word is "investing" buying something now in hopes to turn a profit in the future.

3 types of domain investing:

Capital Gain - buying and holding a potential DN to be sold at a profit
Revenue - buying and using the domain to earn profit with; renting/leasing out, parking or mini sites
Web Site - buying and using the name to build a web business (not a mini site)

[DTalk]

But, we're free to make choices, too....Sometimes, there's a happy coincidence of being seen to be both ethical - and, take care of one's own interests.


Eg LLL.com's are notoriously vulnerable to a UDRP reverse hijack by large corporates, in particular, because there are always many of them that use the same acronym as your LLL...


Parking an LLL is especially risky - almost certainly some ad link - sometime - will transgress a TM - somewhere - sooner, or later, and leave you open to be accused of use in 'bad faith'.....ie of being unethical.....and, you lose it.


With my valuable LLL.com I choose to forgo the mighty 2c per click parking revenue, and direct it to a non-commercial poetry site....That way, a reverse hijacker will always be defeated in a UDRP on the 'use in bad faith' test.

I can demonstrate I'm using the name in good faith.


So, in this case, whilst you forgo parking rev (which isn't all that much on an LLL.com), you protect your asset - and, do it ethically.

.

[mediawizard]

All business is as ethical as you want it to be.

Sad bit is most people on the top of the food chain got there by indulging in unethical activities - corporate spying, industrial sabotage, monopolization if not downright thievery and scamming.

And it still goes on, big companies would love to trample the little guy for any reason whatsoever, not that they're always able to:
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/d...2009-1227.html