Do you understand that Paul demanding that an item of established value be given to him for esoteric intellectual property reasons, and going to a world body that he has actively denounced seeking enforcement of that claim, and failing to acknowledge the added value of the creative and other labor put into the item, including its safekeeping in his failure to exercise his own due diligence, is contrary to virtually everything he claims to stand for as a Libertarian candidate?
There is no work in registering a domain and the cost is minimal.
The value of the name Ron Paul was there before the value of the site was built and the site used existing value of the name to attract visitors.
And finally, current owners wanted to sell value in the form of mailing list for 250K and Ron declined.
Seems pretty clear-cut to me.
As for this somewhat entertaining sideshow on Libertarianism and what-not, I’m not a Libertarian, I just happen to think that Ron has some good points and some other may not be all that well-thought out. But, how’s that different from any other politician? There are more pressing and more valuable issues many are happy to ignore when it comes to their elected politicians yet, I don’t see any outrage - I guess another fantasyland is the place where drones don’t kill presumed innocent people.
You’re still overlooking work that goes into designing and maintaining websites, and the cost can be considerably more than negligible. And Paul was offered one of the domains for free and turned it down because he wanted everything.
The fantasy that something isn’t worth discussing because there are more important issues extends to your own comment about drones. What about world hunger and disease?
…which increased the value of his name and the amount of donations to his campaign. In fact, the case can be be made that he profitted more from the website than they did, since he sunk absolutely nothing into it.
Not to mention that he tacitly approved of their use of the domain by not asking for it to be handed over for five years - even though he campaigned to be President in the meantime.
You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means. I get paid, among other things, to maintain quite a few DNS servers. DNS servers are the basis of domain registration. If I, (or god forbid), the maintainers of the .net or .com TLD servers thought like you did, we could just shut those servers down. Just because you personally don’t value the work, or you don’t understand it, or it comes bundled with other services; doesn’t mean it’s not work.
So it’s pretty provable your fact isn’t a fact. there is work involved in registering a domain and making sure it’s available. I’ll grant you that the cost is low per domain.
As was said before, even this low amount of work and cost was something that Ron Paul and pals didn’t bother doing. Someone else did long before them, that group actually used the domain for what would be an active domain by any measure, and they built on their work in registering the domain to make other work more profitable. That they were able to parlay their work into a possible profit (which hasn’t been shown) isn’t material. Tough titty for Ron Paul and pals. They were given the most amicable bargain they could realistically expect when one domain was offered for free, because they didn’t even deserve that. If they refuse that gift, the terms are what the seller offers. It was pointed out upthread that those terms really were probably “friend prices” as well.
Really, Paul is coming off as more of a douche than usual this week.
He gets the two domain names, and the benefit that comes with having two domains that have been actively maintained in regard to search engines, spam filters, etc. More importantly, he’s depriving the current holders of something they have actively built upon.
Look at it similarly to the squatter’s right provided to Americans during manifest destiny. The federal lands, and the DNS system are shared resources. If you had bothered to show up, claim part of the resource, and improve it, it was available to you first.
I don’t know much about how web pages work, but my impression is that web sites get higher rankings in search results if the web site is linked to by many other web sites. Let’s assume that Ron Paul can only take the top-level domain name. I see that the .com say that hundreds of thousands of inbound links point to specific articles. If Ron Paul wins, will he also damage the value of the top-level domain? It seems to me that Paul wants to take something from his supporters, but his process will also destroy value. (Aside from alienating his fans)
First, there are two or three different lines of argument going on in this thread and some attempts to make one invalidate the others. You’re asking about, and I’m going to address, the technical value issues alone.
The current holders of the domain names did RP a service by registering the names and holding them in trust when he and his entire campaign staff neglected to do so. He owes them a big round of thanks for this service alone. The domains could easily have been in a detractor’s hands, or a simple squatter in a country immune to international action; many domains sit locked up in Nigeria, Taiwan, Poland, Russia etc.
The current holders of the domains have used the domains on RP’s behalf, without any sign of using them for personal or inappropriate gain. That is often a defense for private individuals holding a trade or personal name site - that they are putting it to good and proper use. RP owes them thanks, if not compensation from his campaign funds or own pocket, for their services on his behalf. (He certainly never told them to stop.)
By maintaining a site that has attracted RP followers, they have built the domain name into a successful and strongly anchored destination in search and ranking lists - no mean feat and one that some companies pay millions of dollars to achieve.
By maintaining the site, they have accumulated a huge list of RP followers, and mailing lists have quantifiable value and development costs.
On absolutely no other basis, if Ron Paul wants those domains, he owes the current holders thanks, equivalent goodwill and compensation for the constructed value of what’s attached to them.
Since he refuses to accept that, he is (1) as clueless about how the web works as his campaign staff evidently was; (2) a cheap bastard who recognizes none of the effort put forth in his name; (3) a screaming hypocrite for using processes and institutions he has decried and denounced to try and take the domains without compensation; (4) contravening nearly everything he has claimed to stand for by doing so; and (5) showing his followers what he thinks of them by treating one of the most loyal and hard-working cadres like worthless squatters.
I doubt his campaign staff was “clueless”, considering that half his supporters only exist on the Internet. I tend to think they made a conscious decision to let somebody else run the site and invest their own resources in the campaignforliberty.com site.
Nitro, let’s be clear here: I am clueless about how the web works. Your response covers a bigger picture than I asked, I think. I’m wondering if pulling the top-level domain name away from the current owners ends up destroying value overall. The current owners would still have the content, but without inbound links and Ron Paul would have a domain name. Are those two parts each worth less when they are separated, or does Ron Paul end up with a domain name that keeps its search rank?
Assuming a reasonably qualified webmaster takes over, the value could be preserved, yes. When there are many links to internal resources, you replicate the major ones and use very gentle and helpful redirects for the rest.
But taking over the existing site and slowly evolving it would be better in all respects.
At some point, RonPaul.com was owned by a different Ron Paul, who was, say, a podiatrist in Punxsutawney. Because his name is Ron Paul, his ownership of the domain is uncontested. But as soon as he sells the domain to anyone *not *named Ron Paul, anyone who is named Ron Paul is justified in coming in and taking the domain away from the person who legally and lawfully purchased the property from the previous owner? You feel that this is a fully proper and justifiable use of government power?
1-ICANN is a private, non-profit corporation, established for the purpose (among others) of assigning domain names.
2-ICANN adopted The UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy), a policy designed to adjudicate domain name disputes. All registration agreements incorporate this policy by reference, and all registrants agree to this policy.
3-ICANN has chosen WIPO as the entity to arbitrate and mediate such disputes.
4-WIPO is a UN agency.
5-It seems clear that Ron Paul believes he is attempting to recover something that rightly belongs to him.
6-In every society – including a libertarian society – there is and would be some means of non-violent dispute resolution. That we currently live in a society where oftentimes a state agency provides this service should not preclude a libertarian from using these means – although the issue of a state agency is not even applicable here.
7-To resolve this dispute, Ron Paul must follow a specifically outlined set of procedures. These procedures were agreed to by the registrant before the registration of the domain name could be complete.
It’s point 5 above that I have the problem with. Paul had previously done nothing congruent with the idea that the domain names were his, and has no argument now that I can see. I therefore assume he will lose this effort, though I don’t know how principled the process really is. Either way, he’s doing a lot of damage to his own name and the very value that he’s trying to seize.