This is the third article in the series on domain standards and transparency that relate directly to Google. You can view the whole series in the Archive area of the blog under "standards and transparency". The reason why many domainers aren't screaming is that they've been reinvesting a large proportion of their parking revenue back into acquiring more domains. This will artificially keeping the revenue lines up while there are domains to purchase. The problem will come when the domain traffic market dries up and the revenue continues to fall.

So where does this all lead us when it comes to standards and transparency? Remember that the ultimate goal of standards is to bring transparency and that the goal of transparency is to bring more revenue into our industry. The only way that this will happen is if we continue to punch above our corporate weight and bring either or both Google and Yahoo to heal with their non-competitive practices. Difficult to do? Absolutely! Impossible? No.

There are a number of possible directions where pressure for transparency can be brought to bear on Google and Yahoo.

1. The establishment of an advertising exchange that allows traffic to be monetized from other than Google/Yahoo. Although the achieving a real depth of advertising in the exchange would be a business challenge it is not impossible. I would not be surprised to see the CPA market move in this direction over the next 12 months. It will begin in market niches and expand out.
   
2. The merging together of a number of parking companies to create a "mega-parking" company with enough aggregated traffic could potentially mean that the tail could begin to wag the dog. This is a reasonable possibility that may spring from Oversee.Net (who raised $150 million) or NameMedia once their IPO gets off the ground (likely to be next year).
   Obviously anyone could step up to the plate with a VC or private equity that grasps the vision of controlling vast amounts of traffic.
   
3. Google may have a Microsoft experience and be forced by Washington to actually "do no evil". This is not likely as there are too many competitors in the "search" space that Google could point to (eg. Microsoft and Yahoo).
   
4. Someone at Microsoft may get it into their head to hurt Google via domains and "steal" 6% of Google's converting traffic via the domain channel. I must admit it that this is an interesting concept to play out. Combine this with a takeover of Yahoo and you would have an interesting field of opportunities for MicroHoo.

Is transparency likely to be adopted by Google or Yahoo for the domain channel. I don't think that it is likely as there are too many economic imperatives for them to remain secretive about their numbers.

I'm actually more hopeful that other solutions will develop across the year that will make both Google and Yahoo irrelevant for domain owners. The industry is already beginning to see the some movement in this area with leasing, direct relationships and other innovative business models. There is one mantra that no domain owner should forget, "Those with the traffic will ultimately rule".

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