New IETF Standard for Marking Domains as For Sale: Would This Be Useful?
A recent development from the IETF introduces RFC 10023, which defines a standardized method for domain owners to indicate that their domain name is for sale using DNS. The idea is straightforward: a domain owner can publish a special _for-sale DNS record containing structured information about the sale. This enables registrars, marketplaces, domain search tools, and other services to detect that a registered domain may be available.
Today, many domains are technically registered but owners may still be open to selling. However, there isn’t a common, machine-readable way to express that intent. While some owners use marketplaces, landing pages, or custom solutions, these approaches are fragmented.
Community questions to consider:
– Would a standardized “this domain is for sale” signal be useful?
– Would you incorporate such information into domain discovery or valuation tools?
– What potential downsides do you see (spam, abuse, privacy, false listings)?
For reference, the RFC is available here:
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc10023
Additional background information is here:
https://rfc10023.nl
I’m interested in hearing the community’s thoughts.
