Domainers only care about what happens to expired domains when they want to buy them.
But we don’t think about What the Registrar will do with our domain name if we don’t renew it.
Perhaps expired domains should be the spoils for a registrar’s hard work getting customers to register domains in the first place.
If they let it simply expire, the expired domains would go to whoever has the best drop catching technology.
But most expired domains are auctioned off through exclusive relationships, sending money back to the domain registrar.
Is one of these more fair than the other? In the first model the registrars get nothing, in the second they get a cut. Someone has to have an advantage getting expired domains. Who should it be?
We also have some registrars that keep domains for themselves. But that creates a conflict of interest with customers.
A registrar may not push a customer for renewal because it wants to keep or sell the domain itself. When a registrar gains a LOT more from a customer’s domain expiring than they do from a renewal it puts way too much temptation to lose or forget to help customers renew their domains. It’s as simple as that — the registrar can do whatever they want without breaking any rules. They are the ones in control and can do as they please. Business is business. They will tap into all avenues in hopes of generating a few bucks here and there.
ICANN should delegate a company to do the job of selling the dropped domains with an auctioning system, and keep the money that could benefit to develop some parts of Internet.
But in this case, the registrars would certainly heavily promote a system to prevent the domain expiration by suggesting the domain owner to sell instead of letting expire.
Thus, the registrar are certainly in a strong position.