John L wrote:
The other reason I doubt that you'll find registrars adding large numbers of unpaid domains is that they are in the same situation with the registries, so they'd be putting their own real money at risk.
Close. Registrars have to fund a balance account that they use to fund their registration activity - some allow for a balance to be carried if the registrar files a surety instrument as you pointed out. For the most part, $6m deposit gets you 1m registrations (until Oct. 15 when the price goes up). Registrars also control the delete. This allows the registrar to take what is essentially a highly leveraged request with very little real risk. If the registrant fails to delete a large amount of the unpaid registrations, the registrar can simply delete the whole batch within the 5 day window with no problem or undue exposure. This is why I'm lead to believe that there has been no reasonable assurance of a payment. There's no incentive for a registrant or registrar to require the full amount to be on deposit. -r