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Buying a Domain From a Cybersquatter
Nevo writes "A partner and I are in the planning stages of a business. We've decided on a name that we'd like to use but the domain name is already registered. The owner has a single 'search' page up (similar to the one at www.goggle.com)... clearly not a legitimate business interest, but since we don't own a trademark on this name it doesn't qualify as bad faith, I don't think. Does anyone have any experience buying domains from these operators? Do you have any advice on how to approach the owners of these domains to get them at a reasonable cost?"
When I've accidentally typed in an address wrong, I've been brought to a page with "premium" domains that a squatter is sitting on listing the prices for them. They were all pretty bland and stupid sites like a000.org or MedicMan.net but they listed the prices anywhere from $100 to $5,000. Unfortunately what you have to realize if you're going to make this offer is that they're doing this for those few times a year they strike it rich so it's probably going to be closer to $5,000 or more. If the site is like two last names or something readable, it's probably going to be pretty high cost. Far less than a court case you probably wouldn't win though.
The last thing you need to realize is that whatever money you give this guy is just going to fund him to buy up more domains and keep his hands on others longer. If you wanted to do the most conscious thing for the community, you would just find another domain and not give this scum one red cent.
My work here is dung.
If they are a squatter they will have contact info on their page. If not you can find the registered owner with WHOIS. I would make them a reasonable offer and stick to it. Remember that there may be available alternatives ( .org, .net, .us, etc.)
Don't sound too interested when talking to them, mention possible alternatives. Lower your offer if the negotiations drag out - cybersquatters are in this for the money, and not selling the name means that they're not making any.
If your business plan depends on owning one specific domain then your business plan sucks.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I would suggest finding another Domain that they own and first asking them if you could buy that one. That will give you a high end price. Tell them no thank you. Wait a day and say you also like the real one. Then offer to buy it at 1/2 the price they gave for the first one.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
What do you think the name is worth? $100? $500? They'll want at least 10x that much. If you're willing to pay through the nose, then go ahead, but these people will do whatever is necessary to squeeze every last penny from you.
I would suggest either a different TLD, a different name, or a variation on the name: "MyBizInc.com" instead of "MyBiz.com".
Surely the process is pretty simple,
Send the guy an email asking if the domain is for sale. If the owner is a *pinky to mouth* "One million dollars", kind of guy, it is unlikely that there is any approach you can take that will force him away from a ridiculous price anyway. The only advice that seems valid is, "Don't make the email sound like you are both wealthy and desperate".
Personally, I would make it a short one line email, "Is this domain for sale? If so, please respond with your asking price", then just take it from there. I like to believe that there is nobody that is still stuck in the late 90's when it comes to cybersquat domain prices, but you never know. If the price you get back from him indicates that he is acting like a 90's squatter just email back with, "Ok, thank you". Keep it terse, and keep the ball in his court. Most of all, don't get attached to this particular domain until *your* name is on the whois!
within the past year, my company went around purchasing the .net, .us, .biz, etc TLDs for our domain. none of them were taken except for the .net version. we called the guy up and said we were interested and asked what his asking price was. he said $2000, to which we said that was way too high. he came back to us with, "well how much do you want to offer for it". i think that our final buying price was between $300 and $500.
in that experience, i realized that some squatters are just one or two guys that sat around and registered a ton of domains for a couple of dollars a piece. they are going to use the car salesman mentality by "hit em really high... then scrape them off the ceiling so you can get the price you want to sell for". so they slap you with the $2000 as their asking price knowing that you won't pay it. they know that you won't come back with a $50 offer since their first offer was so high. if they had first said $500, then you probably wouldn't offer them as much. if you really want to play their game and you are just getting started, it might be safe to just kill your webserver while you are on the phone with them so that they can't see what type of company you are or if you has the money bags.
anyway, just go into it like you are buying a car. don't seem too interested or you will pay way more than you should.
stephen
Many of the successful internet companies make up their own name. google, hulu, reddit, slashdot, etc. Make up a word that doesn't exist and go with it.
news.google.com is just as good for google as news.com would be because browsers autocomplete from left to right. I type news, the google site comes right up.
So if you want greatsite.com but thats taken then register blah.com and create a subdomain greatsite.blah.com
Down the track you may be able to snap up the domain you originally wanted, or you may have a better idea by then.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Telling the actual URL in question would be a bad idea as it may cause the current holder to up their asking price since it was linked on slashdot.
We buy a lot of domains where I work--a big honkin' national enterprise--but we never use our work email addresses when we approach a squatter. That way we don't tip them off to how much money we have. So, my advice is to be aware of how you present yourself, and be careful not to give the squatter the impression that you're anything more than a casual buyer. Don't mention that you have a partner, for example, and don't reveal why you want the domain.
First lookup the owner of that domain. Then, there are many sites out there that will tell you which domains that person owns. The way you handle this will be very different if he owns 10 vs 10 thousand domains.
Do a search with some of the "Buy this Premium Domain" sites to see if he has listed any of his sites to see how reasonable he is. Those prices are usually 1-2x's a real max bid starting point.
When you do ask for a price, ask him for the price of several of his domains at once. Act like you are not specifically interested in just of those domains and any would work for you. Maybe pretend to be another reseller interested in building your portfolio.
Some of the other advice above is also good. Don't be desparate, and the first email should be very short.
They will not type in your company name in the URL bar and add .com. They will type your company name into google and click on the result. If they're recurring customers, they will bookmark your page.
URLs are no longer really important. I know people who have no idea what that funny bar on top of their browser is for that displays some funky random characters whenever they click on a link and a page loads.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Anyone who uses Google when they already know what website they want to go to deserves a boot to the head.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
The title of this post is completely misleading. From Wikipedia cybersquatting is "registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else". There's no trademark, not even a business... the submitter just saw a domain name he liked and that was already taken. That domain name could have been acquired by a multitude of reasons, some of which include just keeping it for future use.
:)
When I've an idea for a personal project, and think of a good name for it, I check if it's available; if it is, I register it, and while I'm not using it, why not placing some domain parking page? It's gonna pay peanuts, but everything helps in crisis times. I want to clarify that I'm against mistyped domain or inadequate (popups, casinos, etc) advertising like most internet users.
When you see a domain name you like, just make an offer or ask for a price. Those prices are usually unreasonable, so just find an alternative. Also, always keep in mind that a good product is leaps and bounds better than a good name
Speed Dial for Firefox
Cybersquatting is considered an abusive registration, and therefore subject to 'expedited administrative proceedings' with an ICANN representative. Its likely to cost you a fair bit to go through the dispute resolution, but if their site is obviously a 'for-sale' site, then you're pretty much guaranteed to win - para 4, section b refers almost entirely to cybersquatting.
It might be worth going this route if a) the scumbag has registered several domains you want (eg .com, .net) , and b) also wants loads of cash for them. The cost for the NAF panel is $1300 (nice work if you can get it :) )
I do think the dispute-resolution process is pretty poor for the most obvious forms of abuse, and should be opened up to more, quicker and cheaper forms of arbitration, with anything other than the most obvious cases requiring a higher panel,but ICANN is run as an international body, so I don't expect anything to happen, ever.
If you buy domain names on speculation, you're a cybersquatter - someone who reserves space for no reason other than to occupy the space a resell it. There is no legitimate reason to hoard domains, except to capitalize on the scarcity.
Now, since you appear to be a cybersquatter, I can see how you are a bit touchy and are looking to legitimize your business plan. That's fine. That's why houses are called "resales" and not "used." A "Domainer" (aside from sounding like something out of Waterworld) is just a nicer name for a cybersquatter - but you do the exact same thing.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If you want to buy the domain make an offer, but a fair one or you will be added to ignore list after the first message. We get loads of offers which are too low by two-three orders of magnitude and reading all off them is not really an option.
I think this is the key sticking point. What is "too low"? We all know that your costs are $10 per year (probably less due to bulk, but let's just go with that number) plus some administrative $$$'s. We know that the domains do generate some income from ads. This isn't a case of having registered McDonalds.com because that was your name and you can sell it to the company for 1 bazillion dollars. It's a speculation. I'm ok with some level of "profit" or reward for that but there is no brand associated with the domain already (*you* aren't marketing it), so what constitutes reasonable? I think that $500 is on the high end of what an undeveloped domain name is worth, but when I see $5,000, that just floors me. The key being that the domain is undeveloped. Marketing is the key to whether a domain is successful or not and speculative registration does nothing for that.
Offering these scumbags money just teaches them that they're on the right track. If you've got money to burn, why not throw a little at some of the many groups that are trying to outlaw this practice?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The problem here is a matter of what is "fair". You say that there are loads of offers which are "too low by two-three orders of magnitude." What is a good offer for something like spoon.com? $10000? You paid about 15 bucks for it. I think the problem is the level of expectation that you should get paid two-three orders of magnitude more than what the domain is worth. The problem is that there is no value-add to what you do. It is quite literally just running up to something screaming "I was here first, pay me for this for that reason alone!" Most people resent paying more for a service that doesn't really get them anything. One of the reasons why SEO is such a scam. I might feed the domain trolls and give $100 for something like spoon.com if it was payday and I felt like being frivolous. At the same time you say that you have on it "a website filled with some adds in order to earn some money to finance the cost of domain renewal plus sometimes a few bucks extra." So you are already drawing even if not making a profit, so (in my mind) you can just enjoy your profitable little site, and I will look for a different name.
Oh, and as an afterthought though, props for having the balls to post this with your real UID.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Really?
often times websites will have weird spellings of words or random dashes thrown in between words. It's also pretty hard for me to remember which tld a site is at.
For example, I want to look visit the django book. Is it djangobook.org? djangobook.com? django-book.org? django-book.com? Should I really have to remember which of those it is?
Isn't it easier to hit ctl+l, then type "django book", hit enter, and end up where I originally wanted?
Things get even more complicated if you want to go to a specific sub page of a site.
I want the java documentation. I know i can go to java.sun.com and find it, or i could just search for "java 6 doc" and end up exactly where I wanted to.
If you think that using google to get to a website when you already know is wrong, then you're doing it wrong.
That's the real tricky part though. If you change your web host (and thus change IP address) all the work you've done to improve your Google ranking (not to mention links from other websites, bookmarks, etc) is gone and you'd have to start over again. Having a URL is still a necessity (though having a memorable URL is not as important as it once was).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
In meatspace, if a business sets up in a poor location, it affects their traffic because it is a PHYSICAL business. More importantly, no land = no business. On the internet, very few people even type URLs anymore, they google everything. All that domain registration does is place a few letters in the address bar of people's browsers.
Of course, the name does enormous things for your placement in google. Just do a google search for "buy flowers": at least half the results have the search the search terms right in the domain name. This is not a coincidence. If the name describes what you do and is also your branded name, your success in google is almost guaranteed.
Having a domain name that describes your company is tremendously important for a variety of reasons, not least of which is google ranking. Further, with modern browsers, the address bar searches your history. If you have your name or your product in the domain, this helps people find you a second time. Google Chrome is even better: search and address bar are the same. While I despise these people who park pages, their price is usually worth it if you are a company and the name is good.
So, in the cyber-world, picking the name actually does make a big difference in the amount of traffic you get. Having "widgets.com" really is the equivalent of being off of the highway, while "example.com/widgets" is really miles down the road.
Also, giving up domain names means completely abdicating your surfing to search engines and people who know SEO. Not a good idea.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
What benefits are you providing to the customer?
As far as I can tell, you seem to be similar to a real estate housing "flipper", who shops around for low-priced houses, and immediately sells it for more, without providing the buyer any services other than a higher price.
In a word, you are not generating anything of value.
Is this illegal? No, by no means, and I don't think it should be. It's just a parasitical business model that is bad for the community overall. Real estate flipping is one of the (many) factors that contributed to artificially inflated the prices of houses during the last housing bubble.
Thankfully, it seems that this business model can only exist in the kind of market where the demand exceeds the supply, so opportunities for such parasitical non-productive business is limited.
I'm just glad that my current business lets me avoid having to deal with unwanted middle men like yourself.
Without getting all commie, people who have a lot of money, or opportunity, or options, always whine "It's nothing personal, just business." When you have the option to buy domains and sell them for 100x-1000x the price, why wouldn't you? Legally, of course, it's totally legit. Ethically, it's totally not. And I'll tell you why.
When you buy a piece of land, the law assumes that you are doing your bit to maintain and develop that land. In fact, most property law revolves around that idea of having to put work into it. You pay taxes on it, and you are generally expected to be doing something to maintain it's value. When a property falls into total - or dangerous - disrepair, they come to you with the fines. If your sidewalk is hazardous, you can get sued. This is all considered the price of ownership.
With domains, there is no such cost associated. In fact, all that buying up domains does is suck money from actual wealth-generating sectors of the economy. If I start a business called AwesomeWorldChangingWidgets, I can't get that domain if you're squatting on it without first paying you way more for that domain than you did. Now, if you were society at large, and that additional value was being spread across those people who help to bring value to the domain name itself (such as the internet routers, the municipalities that maintain fiber, ICANN, or any of the host of other sectors that make the Internet viable), that would be fair. But you're just taking the money and running: you're taking the money for someone else's work.
The only complaint anyone ever has with capitalism is the 'I got here first' problem. When you start out with resources others didn't have a fair opportunity at, and then exchange them for disproportionately large sums of money, you're playing into this. Yes, it makes your life easier, but you've only helped yourself - and at the expense of literally everyone else. That makes you unethical.
[Ego]out
First of all what you are describing is not cybersquating (sp)
Ok...
The domain has been registered by a domainer - a domain trader that buys premium domains treating them as an investment.
That's the definition of a cybersquatter. Domainer is what cybersquatters call themselves -- it's like how mobsters call themselves "legitimate businessmen".
it's no trademark, not a domain typo - there is no bad faith.
That's just a subset of cybersquatter. I think we used to use the word "domain scalper" for these guys, but I'm not a real Internet anthropologist, just an old man.
Strange, then, that speculating on land is considered reasonable.
especially since there's a lot more domain-name space than useful land.
Yet some of the most successful sites don't do that at all. Google, Yahoo and Amazon are fantastically successful, and both Slashdot and Digg are doing pretty well for themselves.
Those are all sites that are successful because they have regular readers/frequently repeating customers. If you sell widgets, and people only buy widgets once a year, people will go to your site once a year. Nobody links to widgets on their blogs. A lot of companies sell things that you buy once or twice in your life. Unless you want to get billions of dollars of capital together to build a company that immediately dominates your sector (it is spurious to claim that you could repeat google or amazon on a startup budget today) good SEO is really the only path.
Most of the sites that I visit that have descriptive names are using names that are descriptive of what company runs them rather than what they do (and that company name was already known/trademarked).
This is my point. In the case of the OP, the trademarked name is already registered. This is a serious problem.
I'm sure it helps you a little in search results, but it doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal.
When was the last time you purchased something from a company on the fifth page of Google? A small company I worked for paid thousands of euros to an SEO get first page google ranking. Our business (which was already pretty good) doubled immediately. Our main competitor had a position called Vice President of Search Engine Optimization, that is how important this is in a sector that has real, physical products (cheap consumer goods don't count).
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
"blah...blah...blah...SCALPER GOOD!...blag...blah...blah"
A ticket scalper is nothing more than another form of mugger. They don't add value by helping people who are willing to pay the higher price, they subtract value by screwing over people who just want to pay face value. If they stood at the ticket window and stole cash from the people waiting to buy tickets the same end state would be reached.
Being half an hour too late to buy tickets to a popular concert is annoying. Finding a bunch of tickets being sold online by these jackasses ten minutes after that is more annoying.
Yes it is.
It's the same idea behind buying an undervalued stock, doing nothing with the stock (except owning it) and selling it later.
It's the same idea behind buying a house that you feel is undervalued, renting it out/doing nothing, until the price goes up, and selling it later.
It's the same idea behind buying lots of gold because you feel it will be worth more in the years to come.
Buy low, sell high.
Unlike the above, squatters also clog up my search results, and pretend to be some sort of resource in their own right, feigning relevance to whatever search I did. That's more difficult to make an analogy, but I'll try...
It's like buying thousands of houses that you guess a few might be undervalued, putting a sign outside that says "Bed & Breakfast" or "Ye Olde Antique Shop", and when people come in looking for something entirely different, you either refer them to someone down the block who paid you for it, or you try to sell them the house.
It is generally quite dishonest.
Now, there may indeed be some cybersquatter rule that I can use to hurt them, but either way, I absolutely refuse to support their business model. If it's some kid who bought a personal domain and isn't doing much with it, fine -- but if it's yet another "What you need, when you need it" bullshit site, they can rot.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The cybersquatter doesn't want the domain. He wants your money. Contact him and ask how much the site is going to cost. Don't be surprised if it is ridiculous then send an email back telling him your not interested at anything close to that price. I wouldn't be surprised if that price decreases rapidly to something quite more realistic. The guy is looking to make money and as long as its above cost he would be willing to sell. I don't get why people don't barter here as much as they do in Europe. Its a good skill to have.
Not again! It seems like this is a popular answer lately to tell people to not ask Slashdot, as if Ask Slashdot feedback isn't useful. Why read this section then? Personally I would value intelligent advice over a lawyer's advice if it wasn't intelligent. Neither source is flawless - no, a law degree does not mean you always know what to do. In fact, in this case, it's not primarily a legal question, but a question of business strategy. Will you now tell him to get off Slashdot and hire a business consultant??
It almost goes without saying that you can always pay a professional to get answers to your questions. Hearing the experiences of others for free is still a great value - and clever and unorthodox tactics from from a group like Slashdot is priceless.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
This is a perfect example of a situation where the first person to throw out a number loses.
In our cases the client had their .co.uk and needed their com too. This was back in 96 so even though they were a publicly-traded company with trademarks in multiple countries it wasn't clear that it could be enforced. The board of directors got together and established something like a $15k budget to get the name back.
I emailed the guy and he threw out $350. I literally ran to the bank and did an international wire transfer from my personal funds.
Worked out well for us, but what a fucking idiot :)