Google Patents and domain registrations

This is news from the summer, so perhaps not “new,” but I had not heard of this before.

Google has filed some patents that have implications for people registering new domain names and renewing them. From what I understand, they want to patent their alogrithm which gives search engine rank priority to domains which have been registered for a longer period of time and are registered for multiple years into the future. The main reason for this, apparently, is to cut down on spam which originates from domains that are fly by night: registered for just a year and then not renewed.

I am needing to renew some domains, and this issue came up. Interesting. BTW, my current favorite company for renewing domains is GoDaddy.