Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Aggregated Registration Data Service (next Whois platform) is for sale

The debate starts to be around the next Whois, the Aggregated Registration Data Service, also known as ARDS. Basically, the ARDS is the name of a new central platform which should replace the actual Whois system with more security: Registrars and Registries would update this platform with information about their Registrants.
Many articles have been published already so I will let you read them to understand what the next Whois will be:


For sale

When a 4 letters name is announced ("ards"), I like to search for its .COM* domain name and guess what: "ards.com" is for sale. Once you have submitted an offer (mine was $100), you are informed about a start price which is, most of the time, much higher than the offer submitted. That was expected.

But today, I received another email from the platform selling this domain name:
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Hello Jean,

Thank you for your interest in ards.com.

The seller has advised us he is seeking $50,000.00 USD for this domain name.

If this is within your budget and you would like to proceed with the purchase of this domain name I'm happy to set up a transaction for you via Escrow.com. If not I'd be happy to help you find another name or weigh the merits of a counter offer.

I hope to hear from you soon.

XXX (name changed)

Review & Respond Online
Sent using the DomainNameSales.com platform.
A Trusted Marketplace for Premium Domains
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It is possible the service provider to be selected by ICANN to manage the ARDS want to use that name. I seriously doubt anybody will pay that price but, who knows, maybe ICANN will (unless it is decided to use ards.icann, which I would love for less confusion, but since the service provider should be external to ICANN, I doubt it).

Remember when the Trademark Clearinghouse launched, a 2 words domain name (also difficult to protect), was chosen for this database: trademark-clearinghouse.com (not trademarkclearinghouse.com). Reading this name, I like it better than tmch.com (which must probably be for sale too by the way). I understand it better.

So, will the new service provider want to use aggregatedregistrationdataservice.com or aggregated-registration-data-service.com ? I personally find these names - still available for registration** - far too long. 

Let's see what happens with ards.com.

* I had done the same for rrdrp.com and pddrp.com
** I guess this is changing soon (today is 27 June 2013)

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