Comments on: The Domain Scandal

By: Legal E

Legal E — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:57:29 +0000

John N – This is one of those situations where the law is on your side, but yet it still manages to place you amongst the dreck of society. Domain buying and real estate share a very weak common denominator at best–that of buying and selling. It is completely misguided to purport that registering domain names for the sake of holding people hostage in the future is anything like buying property as an investment opportunity.
How often to people sit down and decide the exact house they want and then go look for it? They don’t. They pick an area and begin looking. With domain names, it’s just the opposite. You come up with a name and then you go searching for it only to find someone else has it–not to use it, to sell it.
If you want to defend such practices, go right ahead, but just know that while the law may be on your side, karma is not.

By: john n.

john n. — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:25:18 +0000

I don’t think there is anything wrong at all if you hold a domain name and don’t want to sell it to someone, or want to get at least fair market value for the domain.

In real estate. would you demand that the parking lot owner sell you his parking lot at a lowball price because you want to put up a shopping mall there? It is the same thing with domain names, someone owns it and is free to do whatever they like with it. You need to give them a compelling reason to sell it to you.

The only exception being non-generic trademarked terms but that is not what we are talking about here i don’t think.

Let’s not put all domain owners in such a bad light. It is not a scam just because they thought of registering the domain name before you did. People should be rewarded for the foresight, money and effort that it takes to get good, generic domain names.