Edwin Hayward of MemorableDomains.co.uk really doesn’t like me comparing domainers with ticket touts. “Until you can take a step back and acknowledge the total legitimacy of the domain resale business on a par with any other line of business, the rest of the discussion is fruitless,” he says. “If you're willing to recast the debate as being purely about the current domain deletion/drop/re-registration system, then that's another matter.”

I’ll happily do exactly as Hayward asks. Let me state very clearly that domaining is totally above board. Nominet thinks so. And I happen to have a few domains for sale myself. So yes, it’s the current cancellation and re-registration process that I believe needs attention, not the business of trading domains in general.

However, I’m not going to step back from the comparison with ticket touts.

“All you had to do to have a reasonable chance - as much as most other people - at a given [suspended] domain was to book it with a drop catcher,” Hayward explains “There are anywhere between half a dozen and a dozen public-facing drop catchers.”

Or in other words, if I’d paid a tout I might have got a ticket.

“What you have to realise,” Hayward adds, “is that beyond the folks who may be exploiting a loophole in the Nominet system (a very selective bit of quoting, in your follow-up post) there are many who play for high stakes totally legitimately, and have invested five figures or more to develop and constantly refine their own drop-catching software, host at the fastest possible servers with the least number of network hops to Nominet, etc. Of course they're going to do better than the average person, just like in any other undertaking where someone is approaching it from scratch and trying to compete against others who do it full-time for a living (competitive sports are a great example).”

Ticket touts, who profit from the arbitrage on a scarce resource just like domainers, also often apply a dedicated, hard-work ethic to their endeavour. As a result they often secure tickets ahead of ordinary punters and proceed to sell them on at whatever the market will bear. So I can't really see where the analogy breaks down. Other than the fact that Nominet’s rules don’t forbid it, whereas most ticket-issuing venues insist that their tickets aren’t transferable. And while ticket touting is widely hated (much like domaining), it’s not illegal.

“Getting back to the thrust of the issue,” Hayward says, thankfully, “what Nominet really needs to do is to devote a few more resources into ironing out any loopholes in the current system. If there were no back doors, no ways to ‘cheat’ the system ... then it's one possible fair system - amateurs (non-domain specialists such as small business owners and individuals) get some names at little cost or effort (through the drop catchers) and those willing to invest massive resources and funds (the pros - the near-fulltime drop catchers and domain investors) get more, because they put in more... and that's how it should be. It's called capitalism!”

This is quite a persuasive argument, putting the ball firmly in Nominet’s court. In the document I quoted yesterday, Nominet’s Emily Taylor said: “Nominet is expending significant resources in dealing with dropcatching, which is disproportionate to the percentage of our registrars who are engaged in this activity. We would prefer to focus resources on programmes which will benefit the majority of registrars.”

But given that Nominet is asking what it should do with its cash reserves, I don’t see why anyone should feel that funds allocated to enforcing the rules on dropcatching would not be money well spent. If Nominet can afford to close the loopholes, and it can, it has a duty to do so.

Finally, Hayward argues against a sealed bid system for suspended domains: “It means that the amateurs will get nothing since all the good names will be scooped up by those with the deepest pockets. This may be ‘fairer’ - and that is arguable - but I am positive it will be perceived externally as being even less fair than the current situation.”

I’m not as positive about this as Hayward. As he observes, the most successful dropcatchers are currently those who spend the most on their software and hardware and then sell caught domains on at market rates to those that can afford them. That's two sets of deep pockets standing between punters and lapsed domains.

It may be that there is no fair system, but I’m pleased that Nominet is at least looking for one.