ForSale: from a pilot scheme to a growing universal system
Update on the new standard
The publication of RFC 10023, the formal ForSale standard, has been attracting considerable interest from the international domain name community. The RFC is also being discussed on platforms such as Reddit and in domain name forums. Explanatory information about the specification has been published as well.
Perhaps more encouraging still, people are actually starting to build tools that use ForSale records.
Just 2 weeks after the RFC’s publication, various generators, validators and other applications were already available. One of the most attractive is forsaledns.net, a tool that can automatically discover ForSale records, thus increasing awareness of the domain names in a portfolio amongst potential buyers.
So, we’re seeing the start of something that’s vital for a universal system to get established: not only implementations by the people behind the system, but also (and increasingly) independent applications that make practical use of the information.
Look beyond the SIDN Whois
The emergence of external applications means it’s a good idea not to limit the publication of ForSale records to the fcod= tag, as used within the .nl chain. Our own Whois page currently still uses only that tag, for displaying the green ‘For sale’ button. Nor does the use of ForSale records have to be confined to .nl domains. Increasingly, with the exception of the SIDN-specific NLFS fcod= tag, the tags work for other TLDs as well.
However, external applications including the aforementioned forsaledns.net can also use the other tags, ftxt=, furi= and fval=, to display additional information such as guide prices.
You can even contact the organisation behind foresaledns.net, SUNCOM EAS, to get your portfolio imported. That’ll increase the chance of a domain name that’s for sale being found by potential buyers.
Pleasing development
In other words, what began as a pilot scheme for the .nl domain is now a formal internet standard. And we’re seeing the first evidence of general adoption outside the original developer group. For us, that’s a pleasing development and a source of great pride.
More information about RFC 10023 is available at rfc10023.nl.
