Why NSI's Front-Running Hurts Consumers http://blog.lextext.com/blog/_archives/2008/1/10/3458012.html
For people who haven't been following the details, whenever you check the availability of a domain on NSI's web site, they speculatively register it for four days, then use the AGP to give it back after four days if nobody's bought it by then. They claim this is to keep bad guys from snatching it away from you. I entirely agree that NSI's four-day hold is anticompetitive, particularly in view of their above-market prices. But what if they held it for four minutes? I still think that the world would be better with no AGP at all, but it seems one could make a plausible argument for holding a domain for the length of time it takes to run a shopping cart through a checkout. R's, John