Cyber-Squatters: A Waste Of (Web)Space November 16, 2006
Posted by Lucanos in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farIt’s incredibly frustrating - you have an idea for a site, and a product, and you are trying to figure out how marketable and “boomable” it is, so you start looking for domains. Something new, something simple - like a YouTube, or a MySpace, or something like that…
But, you’re months or years too late…
Someone, part cunning business person, part downright arsehole, has run through and snatched up all the good, or inventive names already. Some have just run scripts and bought up any domains which are close to an established name - “ipoa.com”,”ipob.com”… others you are sure have just started sprouting random conjoined words and reserved the lot “ipodlover.com”.
You try and find these domains, either through 502-Fishing (typing the URLs into the address bar and seeing whether you get an Error 502 “Bad Gateway”, which, essentially, means that a domain is not in use) or through trying to find domains using one of the hundreds of searching tools, many of which cover 80% of the net, especially when the site you are looking for is in the 20% they do not cover…
502-Fishing is flawed, as alot of these mongrels will register the domain name, but they won’t point it anywhere. Not even at a dodgy HTML page full of advertisements to at least let you know that you have been beaten.
And, even when you do find the Whois record for a domain you are interested, and you can see the name of the slimeball who is sitting on that domain and not using it, there is no obvious way available to approach them and try and negotiate a price for the domain. Not that I can really see a valid reason for parting with a few hundred, or thousand, dollars for a domain which may have cost then ten bucks in the first place.
But, therein lies the issue - a domain is cheap as hell. And with them costing $10, if a person registers a hundred of them and sells just one for $1,000 then they have just broken even and anything above that is gravy.
I wish there was a means test for domains - if you do not put something on that site within 12 months, your registration is forfeit, or… I dunno… something.
At the moment, and to use a realworld metaphor, it’s like someone buying up all of the innercity properties (for nothing) and then not using them, or leasing them, and just waiting for people to approach them and pay through the nose for something that cost the squatter a pittance to begin with.
I know it’s business, and if it makes money, it makes money… It’s just a scummy way to do business.