Dear ALAC, This came to me a week ago, and awaits my reply. Any comment is helpful. Thanks, izumi ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kevin Ohashi <ohashi@ohashi.us> Date: 2007/03/31 5:04 Subject: Re: ALAC Draft Statement :: Domain Monetization To: iza@anr.org Cc: ohashi@ohashi.us Mr. Izumi Aizu, I recently read this on the ICANN website as part of your draft statement and had a few questions and disagreements with it in general. For background purposes I am involved with domain names and do participate in what you are labeling 'Domain Monetization' on a small scale. 'It's a fundamentally sleazy business, since the web sites have no useful content and the way they get the traffic is basically by tricking people, either via typos or recently expired domains' No 'useful' content - What gives you the right to determine what is useful? How do you define use? People obviously click the paid advertisements on websites such as Google and advertisers pay for those areas to advertise. If someone searches for a 'digital camera' and gets a paid search result to Sony for a digital camera or eBay selling digital cameras didn't they get what they were looking for? Presumably when one doesn't find what they are looking for they close the window, go back and look elsewhere. While there may be some deception in rare instances Google and other Pay-Per-Click advertising companies such as Yahoo monitor for such fraud and suspend any accounts deceiving users. Let's look at what is going on - people are typing in cameras.com (actual ppc page) and clicking on a type of camera they are interested in and presented with a list of choices, highest paying advertisers on the keyword. A user then chooses one of those companies and goes directly to their website. I would think that is useful. Isn't that the same as typing in google.com, searching cameras and clicking on a brand? Technically speaking, the user performed nearly identically except you seem to class using a domain monetization service vs something like a search engine as fundmentally sleazy. You pretend the only traffic is typos and expired domain names. There are a lot of generic domain names, for instance cameras.com, which are completely generic and receive pure type in traffic through what is often labeled direct navigation. I am sure you are not ignorant of this fact but merely don't mention it because it would weaken your argument, but nonetheless if you want to present a balanced view and are attempting to look out for the users of the internet, you should be honest and upfront about everything. Wouldn't you agree? 'the presence of such website makes web-surfing by ordinary users far more difficult and confusing than they should be.' Now you are bordering in on free speech and freedom in general. Webmasters around the globe publish websites, blogs and media in many forms and generally are allowed to do so under free speech laws held in many countries. As a member of EFF you must understand that trying to control content, censorship, is exactly what your membership with EFF is against don't you? You are taking your views and imposing them on many others, what you think would be best use and for the benefit of the majority. While this may be noble, is it your place to decide? If I owned dogs.com and put a picture of my dog, I assure you she's adorable, it doesn't really add much content, perhaps if I surrounded it with advertisements? Where do you draw the line? I think many of us can agree that some things are generally objectionable and maybe shouldn't belong on the internet, many countries have such laws regarding pornography, but it is still on the internet, the .XXX proposal was rejected yet again on similar principles. How do you respond to that? 'It seems clear, however, that it does not improve the user experience at all.' (reference to domain monetization) Broad generalization not supported with any evidence. There is evidence suggesting that this traffic and websites monetizing this traffic are actually more beneficial to companies than other forms of advertising. Page 6 of Growth and Sustainability of Direct Search Traffic (http://www.internetreit.com/ica_growth_4.pdf). Direct navigation has nearly twice the conversion ratios for advertisers compared to search engine clicks. Not useful at all? It would seem to me that these websites offer some of the most valuable resources to any company marketing on the internet. That seems quite useful, highly targetted users being sent directly to advertisers of products they are looking for. I hope you take the time and consider these points and can respond to me and explain your position in more depth and with more evidence. Regards, Kevin Ohashi On Domain Monetization We note that there is a meaningful difference between Domain Tasting and Domain Monetization. Monetization is a straightforward arbitrage between the cost of domain registrations and the revenue from as much pay-per-click traffic as the domain owner can get from people who visit web sites in the domain. It's a fundamentally sleazy business, since the web sites have no useful content and the way they get the traffic is basically by tricking people, either via typos or recently expired domains. More importantly, the presence of such website makes web-surfing by ordinary users far more difficult and confusing than they should be. We do not think it is appropriate in this case to make ICANN as a regulator to watch and prohibit the Domain Monetization practices per se. Instead, on behalf of ordinary Internet users, we call upon those commercial enterprises such as Google or Overture to take appropriate measures such as to stop paying for clicks on pages with no content, thereby dealing with a problem that is not limited to typo and expired domains. We've seen click arbitrage, people buying Google ads to drive traffic to pages that are simply other Google ads. This kind of self-generating traffic for pay-per-click advertising is confusing and unnecessary for ordinary Internet users and, in the long run, not healthy for the development of Internet as a whole. Since Domain monetization is a relatively new phenomena, the impact to the ordinary users and the wider Internet community is hard to measure at this point. It seems clear, however, that it does not improve the user experience at all. We think it is worth to keep watching on how it develops and may seek for specific actions when we have clearer understanding of measurable impact. -- >> Izumi Aizu << Institute for HyperNetwork Society Kumon Center, Tama University * * * * * << Writing the Future of the History >> www.anr.org