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I'd buy it just for the lolz, if I could find the damn link where you can actually post an offer.

Minimum bid as of this posting is $1900. Snap Names

https://www.snapnames.com/store/extended.action?ig=986#store;storeName=extended

I thought the same after stumbling onto it in 2007. Now it seems surprising that that there is surprise, especially after the mainstream coverage of ireport.com, toys.com and property.com sales.

So if you're interested, check out http://www.dnjournal.com/ and look at the "Domain Sales" and "YTD Sales Charts".

http://www.dnforum.com/ is the largest forum for domaining.

http://www.domainnamewire.com/ is an insightful news source.

http://www.namebio.com/ is fun to peruse for past sales.

Auctions for drops and end-user sales are at http://www.snapnames.com/ http://www.namejet.com/ and Godaddy's TDNAM service. http://www.sedo.com/ and http://afternic.com/ are mostly end user sales/auctions.

Then continue onto http://www.ricksblog.com/ and finally http://www.domaining.com./

There's plenty of other sites to surf and and never ceases to be interesting. There's even a book ("The Domain Game") that's a good read from a historical perspective.

It's a tough, relatively unknown and tight-knit business. But a burgeoning business nonetheless.

On one hand, Verisign wants us to believe they are sufficiently trustworthy to extort as much as USD1595.00 from us for a handful of 1's and 0's (SSL Certificates), and on the other they expect to be able to get away with the dispicable, annoying business practice of hijacking users' web requests? This is annoying enough as it is with opportunistic larrikins buying up misspelt domains, without the custodian of the database abusing its' position by returning effectively forged replies to queries for domains which do not exist. Reminds me of their recent foray into the domain 'Back-Order Domain Acquisition Service business.

I guess with competitors closing the gap by offering virtually the same thing for a fraction of the price, they must be getting desparate.

What they already offer in their backordering of domains 'service' through Snapnames? only it seems this new 'service' is $9 cheaper..but doesn't allow you to transfer your subscription to a different domain. Still a stupid idea... but what else do you expect from netsol.

A waiting list for blah.com.
So if I add my name to the waiting list for Microsoft.com do I get it after the current expiry? Now there's a pr0n URL :)
Last I saw networksolutions were offering a 'automatic grabbing' service which you paid your money for, and if they didn't reregister in time it did it for you automatically.
Just so you can try and steal someones domain (this is linked off network solutions). I don't really see how a waiting list is any different, and I also reckon it's a really daft idea.
Then again, NSI (sorry, verisign) do have some decidedly dodgy practices regarding domain names. Like auctioning (not going back into the $35 pool or whatever the cost is) old domain names on "Great Domains"
Or charging a 'preference' rate to get a domain transfer request actioned in 2 days rather than 6 weeks.
Looks like yet another extortion tactic by the domain monopoly.

Maybe the intent isn't quite as sinister as you think. People's domains often expire because their bill got lost somewhere. NSI customers have some interest in NSI holding on to their expired domain names for a while.

I must disagree. I'm trying to register a domain name that's been expired since July 2000 -- almost a year and a half -- and NSI is still holding on to it with a kung-fu grip.

I keep asking them for a fax or phone number of someone who can fix it, but I just keep getting a form letter back. It tells me to either contact the original registrant to have him transfer it, or to sign up with SnapNames to get first choice when they finally get around to deleting the record. I can't contact the original registrant because the contact info has been invalid for months, and I'm unsure about paying an NSI affiliate $50 when I don't even know when I'll get the domain.

Has anyone else gotten out of this situation? What's the trick?

After about a 60 day "grace period" the domain goes "on hold" for about six days and then it expires at a few minutes after 6:30 am Eastern.

For the complete dynamics of domain expiring read this;
http://www.ecommercebase.com/article.php/352/20

This article has three parts, be sure you don't miss one. Also, there are links to the authors website, and he has more useful links.

These two companies "watch domains";

http://www.snapnames.com

http://www.dnsresearch.com

I have used the DNS Research service for a domain that I really wanted, but they were unsuccessful in registering it for me. At $99 with no guarantee It's pretty expensive. I didn't use snapnames as the snapback was already sold for that domain (so I knew I had competition). However, snapnames didn't register it for the customer either (I could tell because of the registries used).

If you have tried to register a domain at 6:30 am, you can tell that registries really seem to crumble under the load. So when a domain expires (and they do expire) they are only up for grabs for a few seconds. Thus the appearence that "they never expire". The name checker on enom.com website is current, so you can "watch" a name drop (that is if everbody is not trying to grab it - otherwise by time you hit refresh it's already registered). You have to be careful though, because the whois *is not* updated in real time, and many registrars use that to check name availability. You have to try to register the name to see if its available or not.

So, if you are trying to grab an expiring domain, chances are slim as you are a small fish among big fish trying to do the same thing. And yeah, the Koreans have rooms filled with machines trying to grab that "one good" domain so they can squat it. Read the above links for the full details.

If Verisign/ICANN actaully thought about fairness they could change things and make he "drop" a little bit more fair by enforcing the rules (they don't) and perhaps making the daily "drop" a little more random. In other words, ICANN would have to care, and we all know how much ICANN cares....

The trick with NetSol is that they now allow you to back order domains so that you get them once they expire. Of course I'm not sure if they tell you if there is anyone in front of you "in line" who has first dibs.

I went looking for a connection to NSI (which would definitely be a worst case scenario), and didn't find one (though their info is sparse on the topic of existing partnerships and affiliations) For those who are curious:

Per the SnapNames website:

Ron Wiener Co-Founder - Chairman & CEO
Raymond King Co-Founder - Executive Vice President & Director
(Click above names for photo and brief bio. See website link above for info on the other major execs)

Bill Lewis Chief Operating Officer
Len A. Bayles Vice President, Domain Name Industry Relations
Nelson Brady Vice President, Engineering
Jack Williamson, Jr. Chief Financial Officer
Roy Anderson, Jr. Vice President, Branding Industry Relations

More on Ron Weiner:
(from a speaker list at a plenary session on aviation in Oregon.

Ron Wiener has twelve years of experience as a founder and CEO of high-tech and aviation-tech start-up companies. Currently he is "Chief Mechanic" at Venture Mechanics, LLC (Portland), a venture catalyst/incubator investing in early-stage technology companies. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of PrintBid.com, which he successfully sold to ImageX.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMGX) in December, 1999. PrintBid.com is a B2B e-commerce site for the commercial printing industry and commands an 80% market share in its arena. Combined, ImageX.com now employs 500 people as the industry leader. Prior to founding PrintBid, Wiener was founder and CEO of Distribution Sciences Corp./JetStream Catalog(Hillsboro, OR), a leading software publisher and catalog/internet distributor of over 1,000 products to the aviation industry.

Before moving to Oregon in 1991, Wiener was founder, Chairman and Sr. VP of Marketing of Azure Technology (San Jose, CA), a venture-backed manufacturer of avionics and flight simulation products, and catalog publisher in the aviation industry. Earlier he had served in sales, marketing, product management and product development roles with Central Point Software (Symantec), ICOT (American Airlines' SABRE), Orchid Technology, Eagle Computer and The Computer Factory retail chain.

Wiener was founding president in 1992 of the Oregon Young Entrepreneurs Assoc. (merged with OEF), and author of over 150 published technical, business and aviation articles, and the book Computers and Software in General Aviation (1987). He studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, and serves on the Advisory Board of several other Internet companies. He has been an active pilot since 1985 and operates his B36TC Bonanza out of Hillsboro, OR.

I went looking for a connection to NSI (which would definitely be a worst case scenario), and didn't find one (though their info is sparse on the topic of existing partnerships and affiliations) For those who are curious:

Per the SnapNames website:

Ron Wiener Co-Founder - Chairman & CEO
Raymond King Co-Founder - Executive Vice President & Director
(Click above names for photo and brief bio. See website link above for info on the other major execs)

Bill Lewis Chief Operating Officer
Len A. Bayles Vice President, Domain Name Industry Relations
Nelson Brady Vice President, Engineering
Jack Williamson, Jr. Chief Financial Officer
Roy Anderson, Jr. Vice President, Branding Industry Relations

More on Ron Weiner:
(from a speaker list at a plenary session on aviation in Oregon.

Ron Wiener has twelve years of experience as a founder and CEO of high-tech and aviation-tech start-up companies. Currently he is "Chief Mechanic" at Venture Mechanics, LLC (Portland), a venture catalyst/incubator investing in early-stage technology companies. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of PrintBid.com, which he successfully sold to ImageX.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMGX) in December, 1999. PrintBid.com is a B2B e-commerce site for the commercial printing industry and commands an 80% market share in its arena. Combined, ImageX.com now employs 500 people as the industry leader. Prior to founding PrintBid, Wiener was founder and CEO of Distribution Sciences Corp./JetStream Catalog(Hillsboro, OR), a leading software publisher and catalog/internet distributor of over 1,000 products to the aviation industry.

Before moving to Oregon in 1991, Wiener was founder, Chairman and Sr. VP of Marketing of Azure Technology (San Jose, CA), a venture-backed manufacturer of avionics and flight simulation products, and catalog publisher in the aviation industry. Earlier he had served in sales, marketing, product management and product development roles with Central Point Software (Symantec), ICOT (American Airlines' SABRE), Orchid Technology, Eagle Computer and The Computer Factory retail chain.

Wiener was founding president in 1992 of the Oregon Young Entrepreneurs Assoc. (merged with OEF), and author of over 150 published technical, business and aviation articles, and the book Computers and Software in General Aviation (1987). He studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, and serves on the Advisory Board of several other Internet companies. He has been an active pilot since 1985 and operates his B36TC Bonanza out of Hillsboro, OR.

I went looking for a connection to NSI (which would definitely be a worst case scenario), and didn't find one (though their info is sparse on the topic of existing partnerships and affiliations) For those who are curious:

Per the SnapNames website:

Ron Wiener Co-Founder - Chairman & CEO
Raymond King Co-Founder - Executive Vice President & Director
(Click above names for photo and brief bio. See website link above for info on the other major execs)

Bill Lewis Chief Operating Officer
Len A. Bayles Vice President, Domain Name Industry Relations
Nelson Brady Vice President, Engineering
Jack Williamson, Jr. Chief Financial Officer
Roy Anderson, Jr. Vice President, Branding Industry Relations

More on Ron Weiner:
(from a speaker list at a plenary session on aviation in Oregon.

Ron Wiener has twelve years of experience as a founder and CEO of high-tech and aviation-tech start-up companies. Currently he is "Chief Mechanic" at Venture Mechanics, LLC (Portland), a venture catalyst/incubator investing in early-stage technology companies. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of PrintBid.com, which he successfully sold to ImageX.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMGX) in December, 1999. PrintBid.com is a B2B e-commerce site for the commercial printing industry and commands an 80% market share in its arena. Combined, ImageX.com now employs 500 people as the industry leader. Prior to founding PrintBid, Wiener was founder and CEO of Distribution Sciences Corp./JetStream Catalog(Hillsboro, OR), a leading software publisher and catalog/internet distributor of over 1,000 products to the aviation industry.

Before moving to Oregon in 1991, Wiener was founder, Chairman and Sr. VP of Marketing of Azure Technology (San Jose, CA), a venture-backed manufacturer of avionics and flight simulation products, and catalog publisher in the aviation industry. Earlier he had served in sales, marketing, product management and product development roles with Central Point Software (Symantec), ICOT (American Airlines' SABRE), Orchid Technology, Eagle Computer and The Computer Factory retail chain.

Wiener was founding president in 1992 of the Oregon Young Entrepreneurs Assoc. (merged with OEF), and author of over 150 published technical, business and aviation articles, and the book Computers and Software in General Aviation (1987). He studied Electrical Engineering/Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, and serves on the Advisory Board of several other Internet companies. He has been an active pilot since 1985 and operates his B36TC Bonanza out of Hillsboro, OR.