Is the jig up? I've never known Rick Schwartz to be a guy who was at a loss for words, but the pioneer domain investor and co-founder of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference is apparently through

talking. Yesterday Schwartz posted what he said would be the final post on his blog. For more than a year Schwartz has been warning that domain owners are in danger of losing their high value assets to predators (a prediction that took a step closer to becoming a reality with the recent introduction of the Snowe bill in the U.S. Congress).  Despite that dire threat, the vast majority of domain owners continue to fiddle while Rome may be about to burn.

Schwartz has donated close to $100,000 to help get the Internet Commerce Association off the ground (as have people and companies like Oversee.net, Sedo and Frank Schilling), with the belief that domain owners have no chance to defend their assets and livelihoods unless they band together. The tepid financial response to the threat posed by the Snowe bill

Rick Schwartz

(which was well articulated by attorney/domain investor Michael Berkens on his blog yesterday) apparently convinced Schwartz he was wasting his time and money trying to rally the troops. Schwartz wrote "People are not paying attention to what is coming. They expect somebody else to take care of it for them...I am going back to taking care of my business."

So, what I wrote less than a month ago in our February newsletter already seems to be coming to fruition: "The fact is the small handful of people and companies who formed the Internet Commerce Association are not going to keep paying the freight for everyone else who is content to sit on their hands and hope the problem goes away. It is time to join the fight and protect what you have earned through your foresight and sizeable investment in this space, or accept the consequences and say "oh well, it was fun while it lasted".