DSTI/ICCP/TISP(2004)2/FINAL 

attempting to reach the OECD's Website (

www.oecd.org

) typed instead 

www.oecd.net

, which is not 

registered by the OECD, they would be led to a traffic aggregation Website. A common practice, as in this 

instance, is for an initial Website to be presented with links or language targeted toward keywords or 

geography. If the user then moves to another Website, a pop up window will offer further directory options, 

the opportunity to set the page as a home page or download other content or software. 

One further aspect of the traffic aggregation model is important to understanding trends in domain 

name registration. Registrants aiming to make money from traffic aggregation closely follow the expiry 

dates of existing registrations. They target high traffic sites in the hope that the existing registrant will not 

renew their registration. Accordingly, if, due to an oversight, for example, the existing registrant failed to 

renew their domain name the speculator registers the name. The intent is to park the domain and earn 

revenue from traffic aggregation for the time the domain rests in the hands of the new registrant. If the 

previous registrant is willing to pay to retrieve the name, that presents an additional source of revenue. 

As the annual cost of domain names has fallen from USD 35 to below USD 6, the number of `click 

throughs' needed to generate a profit is relatively small particularly where links are targeted towards the 

previous registrant's area of economic or social activity. Even at a rate, such as USD 0.02 per click 

through, the cost of annual registration can be covered with one click through per day. 

A further difficulty in assessing the demand for new gTLDs is the practice of defensive registrations. 

To prevent the fraudulent or abusive use of names associated with their area of economic or social activity 

many entities make defensive registrations. Businesses, for example, will commonly register trademarks 

across all new gTLDs irrespective of whether they intend to use the name simply to prevent abusive or 

fraudulent registrations. In many cases businesses will either not use such a registration or apply a redirect 

to their existing Website.  

There are few data available to inform the question of what proportion of names under new gTLDs 

represent defensive registrations. At the time of writing ICANN is undertaking its own study to inform this 

question. A previous study of registrations under 

.biz

 carried out in 2002, and therefore relatively early in 

the evolution of a new domain name, found: 

 Comparison of registrants of 

.biz

 and 

.com

 domains has shown that approximately 25% of 

.biz

domains are likely registered by the same organization that holds the corresponding 

.com

 domain. 

Further inspection of these names shows that the overwhelming majority are not being put to 

active use. Accordingly, we conclude that these domains are, by and large,  defensive  

registrations, for which the registrants pay their respective registrars only to prevent other would 

be registrants from using the names. 

34

The foregoing practices of cyber squatting, domain name speculation, traffic aggregation and 

defensive registrations make it difficult to assess the demand for new domain names which results from 

registrants wanting names for new and unique Internet applications (

e.g.

 Websites, e mail). Some data are 

available from Afilias. Towards the end of 2002, as 

.info

 reached 1 million registrations, Afilias stated: 

 Of all the new TLDs, 

.info

 also boasts the highest percentage of active sites   close to 70%   as 

well as the largest number of live, dedicated Web sites that encompass 27% of its registrations 

and approaches 

.com

 s 35%. 

35

By April 2004, the Afilias Website contained the statement that over two thirds of 

.info

 Websites 

were active, including over 400 000 live, unique sites. Active registrations include dedicated Websites, and 

password protected pages but also redirects to other Websites and `parked pages'.

36

 All that can be 

determined from these data are that there are a significant number of Websites under 

.info

. This would 

 30