The Man Squatting On Millions of Dollars Worth of Domain Names

Jason Koebler writes For the last 21 years, Gary Millin and his colleagues at World Accelerator have been slowly accumulating a veritable treasure trove of seemingly premium generic domain names. For instance, Millin owns, has sold, or has bartered away world.com, usa.com, doctor.com, lawyer.com, comic.com, email.com, cyberservices.com, and more than 1,000 other domain names that can be yours (including yours.com, which he owns), as long as you've got the startup idea to back it up. Millin doesn't sell domain names anymore, instead, he trades them to startups in exchange for a stake in the company.

Comments

IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

What has he created? What has his labor produced? Or is he just a landlord?

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

What has he created? What has his labor produced? Or is he just a landlord?

As opposed to your average VC board member?

Talk about fucking reaching. Would it make you feel better if he instead sold the domain for $25 million to some startup, and instead they offered him $10 million and a fuckton of stock options equal to 10% of the company?

Like it matters how the deal was bartered. He's an investor to a company like anyone else, not a rentseeker.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[St.Creed]

He's not an investor - he's a squatter who just claimed a generic name before anyone else needed it. He doesn't need it either, he just holds it ransom.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not an investor - he's a squatter who just claimed a generic name before anyone else needed it. He doesn't need it either, he just holds it ransom.

Yeah, that's somehow nothing like a board of directors that can eliminate current management at will or anything. Hell, by comparison a ransom would imply a company had a choice if they could afford it.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with being a landlord? Think their rental properties were bought for free by them?? Do you think that their housing they themselves bought or mortgaging should be free too??? Come on already IF you do! The guys doing "domain squatting" have to PAY FOR THOSE DOMAIN NAMES & yes - they're taking risks. Small risks imo, for HUGE returns, but still risks. They're pretty much like stock speculators or investors.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[rs79]

We've been through this for 20+ years. The counterargument is people can use these name now that otherwise wouldn't be able to. Long term it's a wash.

I met Gary 20 years go, he's a decent guy. Although I haven't talked to him in over a decade he was always a man of his word.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

There can be a lot of wrong coming from being a landlord. Sometimes these are matched by the tenants but other times, not so much. It can simply become a way to extract wealth while scanting as much as possible on the expenses.

In this case, the risk is comparable to buying lottery tickets. Lots of them true, but how much of that is respectable conduct? A game of chance, but do we give accolades to the winner, or just recognize that they didn't do as much as the guy cleaning up typos in source code comments that nobody ever read anyway.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a real landlord, you can't "scant expenses" like maintenance, taxes, utilities, & code enforcement. That's also assuming you even have the property paid off. If not, there's mortgages in there too. It is *NOT* how you think it is. Doing what these guys are doing though, entails none of that. The equation of the two is NOT accurate.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, they can scant those expenses. And some inevitably will, and prevention, let alone remedy, costs a lot

But you're right, this is even less involved than owning real property.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

he is a douche bag plain and simple

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are dumb landlords (slumlords usually) then. Why? They can be fined for some of those things, or worse (properties taken for taxes and FAR from the total assessed worth of the properties. Around here, for instance, IF a landlord misses 3 quarters of taxes, he gets taken to court for them, and then has to make payments. Don't make them? ENTIRE PROPERTY IS GONE WITH THE DAWN!) These guys? They have no overheads but, they did make a SMART MOVE, speculating as they did on at least some of the domain names they've purchased. Some not also, of course. Anyhow, nice speaking to you.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming that the consequences catch up to them, which is not a given, at least in this world. And I'm not entirely certain about the next.

That's why a lot of money has to go into code enforcement and more. It's a nasty cycle.

These guys, well, I can at least hope they're not deliberately hosting any of those pages that say you must pay 200 dollars to the FBI or scan for viruses.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Mr. Freeman]

Of course they can. Shady landlords have a habit of evicting people who report them. Yeah, it's illegal, but do you think that lawyers are free? Do you think that most people can afford to lose their place to live for 6 to 8 months while a trial takes place?

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[mrchaotica]

You sound like you're trying to defend the cybersquatter, but all you're really doing is condemning boards of directors too.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[guises]

The only reason they otherwise wouldn't be able to is because it would be in use. In other words, we've deferred 20 years worth of economic benefit.

The only real counter argument that I've seen is that there have been very few good suggestions for an alternative system. Although there have been some, they tend to get pushed aside for the sake of maintaining status quo.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[hcs_$reboot]

What has he created? What has his labor produced? Or is he just a landlord?

How many people in the late 90's were anticipating that .com rush? So the guy may not have created much, but at least he did something hazardous at the time you didn't see coming.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[earthminion]

@"he's a decent guy"

I strongly question that idea. His business plan is to essentiality only allow people to earn a living if they keep giving him a cut of their income. That is morally at the same level as a protection racket, as in they won't cause you harm and allow you to earn a living, if you keep giving them money.

And no, thats not the same as a lot of other businesses, because a racket is defined as: "a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem"

In fact your argument he is a decent guy is so implausable, about the only people who could try to say he was decent was other cybersquatter/racketeers.

Perhaps we should keep calling them cyberacketeers, because that is what they really are, and then we can start to throw federal racketeering laws at them and there are international agreements to fight racketeering.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is that .com domains are too cheap. There should be cheap alternative TLDs, but .com domains should cost 100s a year. Well within the reach of small commercial businesses but if would exponentially increase cost for "investors"

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is he just a landlord?

The correct historical term would be Robber Baron. Basically an unscrupulous scumbag that hinders commerce by imposing unauthorized tolls and tariffs and at times by ransoming or hijacking the goods outright.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

BS: Tenants break things to avoid paying claiming "habitability" (stoves, fridges, showers, toilets), welfare would back them. No more. Landlords stopped renting to them, the civil servants weren't placing people losing their jobs. Things changed. Now, they do that where I live (tenants destroying)? They get evicted even once, they never get welfare, again. About fucking time. ON EVICTING PEOPLE? Don't b.s. us there either. You GO TO RENTAL COURT: Judge says "no pay, no stay" if they are caught wrecking things they pay up too. What catches those dumbass tenants is getting local code enforcement to check the place PRIOR to the tenant moving in along with dated photos. You get that? Judges ALWAYS GO YOUR WAY. Landlord merely says "Your honor, if the place was so bad before they moved in, why did they? Your own code enforcement & these photos prove it was NOT!" It's what I do, it works. Now I pick better tenants as well. They must have a job. NO unemployment people either (it's tough to get to their money in terms of compensation for damages, you have to go after their bank accounts, if any, usually there isn't one).

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[The Grim Reefer]

I strongly question that idea. His business plan is to essentiality only allow people to earn a living if they keep giving him a cut of their income. That is morally at the same level as a protection racket, as in they won't cause you harm and allow you to earn a living, if you keep giving them money.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about him squatting on domain names. One one hand he had the foresight to invest his money in something that may not have amounted to anything. It's really no different than a person buying a commodity when it's cheap and plentiful, then selling it when the price goes up. But I also see the other side of the argument too. The internet has become ubiquitous.

However you are being a drama queen. You don't need a specific web address in order to be in business. It is nothing like a protection racket. He doesn't come and burn you business down or kill your family and friends if you don't pay him. It's closer to someone trying to open a business and using a name or advertising slogan that has already been trademarked. You can be sued or decide to settle by paying a license fee. But they don't send a bunch of goons to rough you up, other than the lawyers.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is he a cybersquatter?? Do you actually know what cybersquating means??

He LEGALLY OWNED the websites before somebody came along and instead of coming up with some new name they wanted to use the one he LEGALLY owned.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is quite different. Here, squatting asshat A sees Mr. B planning an Industry C startup on North Foobar Avenue, so squatting asshat A goes and buys every possible domain combination that might be brandable for Mr B. Squatting asshat A only has to spend at most a few hundred dollars for this, because domains are cheap if you manage to get to them first. Later, Mr. B is ready to take his business online, only to find somebody has monopolized his brand name domains. Squatting asshat A will only let the legitimate should-be owner obtain those domains for tens of thousands of dollars, and ICANN is all too happy to assist him in this racket; they don't care who fills the glass as long as they get to skim off the top. Domain squatting is not investment.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[petteyg359]

In the late 90's, domains were practically free. In fact, lots of places "sold" free domains (actual .com and .net, not just subdomains). He didn't do anything hazardous.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Mr. Freeman]

You are the most deluded fuck I've heard from in the last month. Congratulations.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

You foaming @ the mouth = you got schooled talking out your ass.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

The examples given are valuable as generic URLs and give no evidence of specific targeting of start ups. Not to say he's not doing it, but there's no evidence if it given here, so your argument is based in assumption.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rental courts don't take 6-8 months. Maybe 1-2 hours stupid.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[lucien86]

Your a snivelling anonymous coward so shut up.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Freeman's sockpuppet: Another welfare no-mind b-a-s-t-a-r-d

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad memories of your past evictions, welfare scumbag?

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[tehcyder]

What's wrong with being a landlord?

It's not edgy, disruptive and agile.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're welfare cases: Landlord's evicting them's in their dim brains from being evicted so much and being such poor trash.

Re: IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[tehcyder]

He comes across like an unholy combination of APK and the "Navy Seal with 300 confirmed kills" copypasta.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[drew870mitchell]

Cite please? I've never seen "free" .coms that didn't have huge gimmick terms attached to them.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[petteyg359]

If you want a paper trail, you're going to have to go find a paper trail. In the days of Alta Vista and Infoseek you were lucky if you found something that actually matched your keywords, and Google doesn't index the Wayback Machine for obvious reasons.

Re:IOW, he's a rentseeker.

[Anonymous Coward]

Domain squatters are scum. The counterargument is spurious. There's no advantage here if the monied individuals purported to benefit could convince the other, legitimate domain owner to sell. He is, at best, the least scummy of the scumbags.

New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Britz]

I really hope that all the new TLDs will end this domain squatting pest and diminish domain names. Squatters add nothing of value. Only transaction costs to online businesses.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[khasim]

It doesn't matter. The domain names are only worth whatever someone will pay for them. Sure, he's made millions in the past with some high profile sales. But that's in the past.

How much do you think gouda.com is worth?

What kind of startup would trade part of themselves for gouda.com?

I looked through my bookmarks and I didn't find a single instance that would be considered "generic". The closest was amazon. Which has nothing to do with the Amazon or Amazons.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a well established way to deal with this problem in the case of real estate: property taxes based on assed value. This discourages people from holding onto something of value which they are not developing.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of startup would trade part of themselves for gouda.com?

A cheese wholesaler? Squatters are scumbags, but don't overlook the value of simple domainnames. I looked through my bookmarks and I would say about half are nice generic names like taste.com.au, discountart.com.au, food.com, movieflicks.com. Having said that the value in simple generic names is not in bookmarks it is people type them in and try them and they are easy to remember when you are looking for something.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[ColdWetDog]

There is a well established way to deal with this problem in the case of real estate: property taxes based on assed value. This discourages people from holding onto something of value which they are not developing.

Explain, please, who has the relevant taxing authority for Internet 'property'?

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[BasilBrush]

For all the country code top level domains the answer is obviously the appropriate country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Redbehrend]

Squatters are scum IMO. They target companies, people, names and pre-register names by looking at startups / new companies hoping to hold it hostage for thousands when they bought it for $3. IMO if you don't have a related name or business you shouldn't own it. Not to mention I've dealt with some and they are complete a-holes. Asked for one for $100 they bought for $3 dollars and showed zero visitors in the past year and guess what. They offered to go from $5,000 to $3,000 then get told to accept it or get lost.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

domains each have a country code. Many country codes are already handled this way with far strictly controls on who can take a name, it is really only the US (.com) domain that is so incredibly lax with its rules on who can have what name. In Australia for instance you have to have a ABN (which in simple terms is government tax number) and the name has to be similar to your business or the same as your name. So no domain squatting in Australia unless you also register a shit load of businesses with the government too.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[shadowrat]

Also, the days of naming your company after something are long gone. People just apply random stuff like Uber to their company. The next big startups are going to be named stuff like "Zoosit", and "Mixlebin".

oh gosh! mixlebin.com is still available. i better get it!

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Whilst technically true. The responsibility of verifying this has traditionally remained with the registrar, and is regularly not done.

To make matters worse, if someone has a domain name that they are not eligible for in Australia, and you are eligible, you have to contest it at a personal cost of up to 4 thousand dollars (depending on the size of the arbitration panel).

FOX actually has a company that preys on this and buys up .au domain names and sells them back to eligible people for roughly that same price.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[pspahn]

The practice is so widespread, new software can never be named something practical and descriptive. It's always gotta be some name from left field. I came across one recently that was so bad, the website didn't even say what the software did! All it says are buzzwords with a link on how to install. They want you to install the software before you know what it does.

Sigh ... Millennials.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[nukenerd]

What kind of startup would trade part of themselves for gouda.com?

A cheese wholesaler?

If I wanted cheese, I wouldn't type in "gouda.com" in the hope that it took me somewhere, and I am not sure I would trust the result if I did; I'd Google for "cheese".

...... the value in simple generic names is not in bookmarks it is people type them in and try them and they are easy to remember

I never bother to remember website names. They don't mean shit, especially with all the new TLDs. Having found a website by Googling I bookmark it (with a name of my choice) to find it again. Eg, I frequently go to a website of a certain local builders merchant to order stuff, and do you know what - I havn't got a clue what the name of their website is, never even glanced at it. Might as well be called 123.456.321.654 for all I care.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[quantaman]

There is a well established way to deal with this problem in the case of real estate: property taxes based on assed value. This discourages people from holding onto something of value which they are not developing.

Explain, please, who has the relevant taxing authority for Internet 'property'?

The same organizations who control and sell the domains under the TLD to begin with. The problem isn't authority, it's valuation. It's really hard to assess the value of a domain.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't anymore.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Smerta]

Mixelbin?!?! C'mon man, get with the times!!! All the kewl kids are dropping vowels like a bad habit.

Much better to go for mxlbn, it's way cooler.

Ironically (I believe that is the correct use of the term), mxlbn.com is actually available as a domain name as well. At least as of 4:18pm P.S.T.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Smerta]

Ha... I transposed the "e" and "l" in your mixlebin (in my defense, I work a lot with pixels, lots of graphics programming on the brain). Guess those hipsters were on to something with the vowel dropping after all :-/

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Having found a website by Googling

My guess is that the value of 'generic' domain names dropped considerably when search engines matured. Does anyone actually type a generic domain name before doing a search and is there any search engine value to a generic name?

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[drinkypoo]

It doesn't matter. The domain names are only worth whatever someone will pay for them. Sure, he's made millions in the past with some high profile sales. But that's in the past.

At best, domain squatters are exacerbating the problem of shitty naming of open source projects. That is literally the best possible case, the least possible damage they could be doing. Isn't that alone worthy of stringing them up by their entrails?

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[mrchaotica]

Unless the name ends in an "r" without a vowel immediately proceeding it, nobody cares.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

The country of residence of the owner, presumably. Some jurisdictions have property taxes on high value items like cars. The laws I can find are limited to "tangible" items so they don't cover things like copyrights or domain registrations which probably should have a cost to hold on to.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[colinwb]

(almost) nothing is new - in 1720 an English public company advertised itself as "a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company#cite_note-29

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

add a .js and buy a .io domain

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[jhoger]

"And what exactly does Gryzzl do? Itâ(TM)s a cloud for your cloud. I have no idea."

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[hcs_$reboot]

Recent history shows that despite new TLDs and country code TLDs, most entrepreneurs still prefer a .com to start a business (then may own a country or .biz TLD as well).

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wanted cheese, I wouldn't type in "gouda.com" in the hope that it took me somewhere, and I am not sure I would trust the result if I did; I'd Google for "cheese".

If you wanted cheese, you wouldn't look for a gouda.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[allo]

What about .io, .fm, .in, ...?

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[allo]

I know no .biz anywhere. Some other new TLD, like .info, but no .biz.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber actually means super in German and has been used by gamers since the internet started

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[onepoint]

What's gouda worth .... that's a good question so let's run some quick math just to see what it might be worth. I'll use a name that i owned for a while.
first, it's a solid fun name, I happen also to have a fun and solid domain name
that's 48000 visitors for year, of which I got about 9000 visitors to click google paid about 650.00
that level has been consistent for years.
so 650 x 10 = low end is about 6500
I get offers all the time, best do far is about 18,000.00
gouda is much more fun sounding so it's got to be worth more
I think it's fair to say that it's an easy 10,000

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wanted cheese, I wouldn't type in "gouda.com" in the hope that it took me somewhere, and I am not sure I would trust the result if I did

I never claimed any of that, you are putting words in my mouth.

Since you need it spelled out for you, the benefit of a generic domain name is not to avoid Google, it is for remembering. It is a lot easier for "gouda.com" to stick in your brain, than it is for "joesfinegourmetgouda.com". Maybe you personally wouldn't be swayed by commercials for "gouda.com", but advertising wouldn't be a billions of dollars a year industry if it didn't work out more often than not.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is not DNS

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Not super, above. I would think their name came from shortening the term "über alles", which translates to above all.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[drkstr1]

This guy knows what he's talking about... I was the guy who developed software systems for a hard-money lending company, to determine just such a value.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Solandri]

What kind of startup would trade part of themselves for gouda.com?

I looked through my bookmarks and I didn't find a single instance that would be considered "generic".

A friend of mine is in the generic domain name business. The point wasn't to get a generic domain name for your company. The point was that a surprisingly large number of people would type their search phrase into the URL bar of the browser, instead of into the search field or going to Google or Yahoo and typing it there. So a large number of people searching for gouda cheese would just type "gouda.com" into the URL field. Some browsers would even helpfully append .com if it detected a non-TLD typed into the URL field, so typing in "gouda" would take you to gouda.com. Colombia and Cameroon make a not-trivial amount of money because their TLDs (.co and .cm) are common typos of .com, and their governments own many of the domain names which are typos of common sites, or sold them to the actual sites for a pretty penny.

Once you get a user to your gouda.com page, you present them with a list of sites about gouda cheese. To the user, this looks like a helpful list of sites similar to if they'd typed "gouda" into a search engine. In reality, the sites have paid the owner of gouda.com for prominent placement on the landing page. They pay the owner a small referral fee for every user which gets to their site by clicking through a link on gouda.com.

The efficacy of these generic domain names has decreased substantially in the last 5 years. So many users treated the URL field as another search field that the browsers adapted to the behavior. They now detect if what's typed into the URL field isn't a TLD, and redirect it to your default search engine. Also, Google's and Yahoo's ranking algorithms no longer give much higher rankings to domain names which matched the search term. In the past, if the browser forwarded "gouda" to Google, the top result used to have a high probability of being gouda.com. FInally, most ISPs have gotten into the monetizing game by tweaking their DNS so it directs common typos and incomplete URLs to their own monetizing landing pages.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[umafuckit]

How much do you think gouda.com is worth? What kind of startup would trade part of themselves for gouda.com?

Plenty of people out there want to buy names like these for commercial purposes: rockingchairs.com, hammocks.com, www.wine.com, www.petfood.com

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[umafuckit]

My guess is that the value of 'generic' domain names dropped considerably when search engines matured. Does anyone actually type a generic domain name before doing a search and is there any search engine value to a generic name?

No, but I do look at the domain name before I click the link in the search results. It can help spot malware sites, etc.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[petteyg359]

When you want to buy something at Target, do you drive up and down every road looking for a store that might be Target, or do you go to the address where Target is?
When you want to get groceries, do you drive around randomly looking for signs that say "grocery store" or do you go straight to the street address of the local H-E-B, Kroger, Publix, or whatever?

The same applies to web sites. When you want to order a laptop, you check the sites of businesses you know that sell laptops (Dell, HP, Amazon, NewEgg, Fry's), or you go to a shopping comparison site (which, guess what, has a brand name as their domain!).

Search engines have absolutely not reduced the importance of domain names.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay $10,000 for it, but only if I had really good Gouda to sell and lots of it.

Re:New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Pope]

UK domains tend to be [name].co.uk, and there's a tidy business for the people running *.uk.co

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[Anonymous Coward]

Assessing the value is easy: let the owner do it.

Google can declare google.com to be worth $1 or they can declare it to be worth $1 trillion. In either case, if someone then offers that amount for google.com, they must sell it. Consequently, Google will be honest about the true value of the domain and value it at whatever they think the name is actually worth to their business, such that if someone does buy the domain, the aren't at a loss.

Re: New TLDs will hopefully end this practice

[quantaman]

An interesting idea but I don't think it's practical.

Setting a pre-committed value for an asset like that is extremely difficult. Particularly if it's linked to a legitimate business that might grow rapidly in value.

How to fuck this guy over

[russotto]

1) Generate startup
2) Obtain domain name for stake in startup
3) Declare bankruptcy
4) Buy substantially all assets (including domain name) of startup.
5) Repeat

Re:How to fuck this guy over

[codeButcher]

I know reading the article is not fashionable, but it says:

"You can no longer buy a domain name from Millin. Instead, he will work with your company (or your idea for a company) to build out a product, then he'll lease or lend you one of his domain names in exchange for partial ownership." (emphasis mine)

Re:How to fuck this guy over

[hitmark]

the rentier economy...

There's always that guy

[Anonymous Coward]

aka the troll on the bridge, whenever a big new industry or platform comes into existence. Someone who's figured out how to seize ownership of an essential piece of the supply chain and then make a mint charging rents, or by selling all or parts of it for 100x what he paid.

Congrat Mr. Millin on being "that guy".

Re:There's always that guy

[ColdWetDog]

You all do realize that most of the people who made money off of the various 'gold rushes' haven't been prospectors? They've been 'support' people. They guys who sold the food and mules, operated the boats and stores. The poor fools who bought the mules, food and transportation got to hack it out in the backcountry. A few struck it rich. The rest didn't.

Although not associated with automobiles, there is an analogy here.

Re:There's always that guy

[Bob_Who]

"You can no longer buy a domain name from Millin. Instead, he will work with your company (or your idea for a company) to build out a product, then he'll lease or lend you one of his domain names in exchange for ....

....turds and cock

1) BlowMeDailyMillin.com
2) MillinEatMyTrollTurds.com

Millin4Millions.com is not for sale, no matter how much you beg and gobble....

Re:There's always that guy

[Em Adespoton]

...except in his case, he realized the value of them, and realized that someone would rent seek them, so he grabbed them to give out to those he figured would use them for something useful.

His behavior is actually preventing the predatory practices that naturally grow out of the current domain registration racket.

And of course, any startup he gives one to can then turn around and sell it if they need the money.

Re:There's always that guy

[gnupun]

whenever a big new industry or platform comes into existence. Someone who's figured out how to seize ownership of an essential piece of the supply chain and then make a mint charging rents, or by selling all or parts of it for 100x what he paid.

Before you go too harsh on this guy, remember google's several hundred billion dollar market capital is based entirely charging huge per-click ad fees for certain search keywords like "insurance", "hotel" and "doctor." I think it's just supply and demand of marketing assets (which is what a generic name URL is).

If your web insurance company is capable of generating tens of millions a year, you either have to pay Google and/or someone like Mr. Millin to be visible to your customer. IOW, the buyer of the URL will only pay fair value, and no more.

Re:There's always that guy

[drinkypoo]

His behavior is actually preventing the predatory practices that naturally grow out of the current domain registration racket.

Well, no. His behavior is the predatory practice, because he's set himself up as arbiter of who is worthy, and at what price.

I don't hope very many people die in a fire these days, I guess I'm mellowing with age. But domain squatters are on my list, because they're a net drain on society. They contribute nothing of value and they stand in the way of actual accomplishments.

Re:There's always that guy

[drinkypoo]

remember google's several hundred billion dollar market capital is based entirely charging huge per-click ad fees for certain search keywords like "insurance", "hotel" and "doctor."

They built the stadium, they get to decide who plays in it and under what terms. But domain squatters didn't build anything. They're just taking advantage of a weakness in the system, to the detriment of everyone else. Google, on the other hand, makes the web useful. There are more sites on the web today than there would be if Google didn't exist. There are less sites on the web today than there would be if domain squatters didn't exist. Therefore, they can FOAD.

Re:There's always that guy

[Em Adespoton]

My point here is that he's charging the same amount for the domains as a default registry charge -- $0. And while doing this, he IS preventing regular squatters from sucking up these domains and turning a profit off them.

But none of that matters much anymore, when you can register domains like nota.democrat if you pay the right registrar the right $$$....

I consider domain registrars for the most part to be a net drain on society. Let's just map unicode to IPv6 and be done with it. Use a search engine instead of a domain to find the content.

Re:There's always that guy

[pspahn]

There are less sites on the web today than there would be if domain squatters didn't exist.

A: This sounds like a feature, not a bug.

B: People act like having to pay a couple grand for a desirable domain name is such a travesty. If you're a legitimate business and you can't scrape a chunk of your advertising budget to buy the name you want, you should probably just stick to your brick and mortar.

Re:There's always that guy

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with all the envy. Once you all create or have something of value do you expect everyone else to pass judgment on your use of whatever it is. Do you not also aspire to have or create something of value? I'll be you're all "squatting" on something that someone else could get better use of. Does that make you a troll too?

Re:There's always that guy

[drinkypoo]

A: This sounds like a feature, not a bug.

So you're anti-choice? You're part of the problem.

B: People act like having to pay a couple grand for a desirable domain name is such a travesty.

Yes, and it is. It's bullshit.

If you're a legitimate business and you can't scrape a chunk of your advertising budget to buy the name you want,

Ah yes, the old "the market can bear this malfeasance" argument. It's always shitty, and always used to excuse bad behavior.

Re:There's always that guy

[drinkypoo]

My point here is that he's charging the same amount for the domains as a default registry charge -- $0.

But you're lying. That's not what he's charging. Stop lying. Then you won't be so wrong.

Re:There's always that guy

[drinkypoo]

You all do realize that most of the people who made money off of the various 'gold rushes' haven't been prospectors? They've been 'support' people. They guys who sold the food and mules, operated the boats and stores.

Those guys provided a valuable service: they arranged (or paid) for the goods to be transported west. Domain squatters are interfering with a valuable service.

Although not associated with automobiles, there is an analogy here.

In your gold rush scenario, domain squatters would be people who bought out the stores of all their goods, then opened their own store with prices inflated by around 1,000 percent and up (judging by responses I've got from domain squatters when I've poked at them just to see what kind of assholes they were.) For example, a squatter owns cardot.com, which would obviously be a cool place to put slashcode (or something like it, of course, since slashcode HAHAHAHA) and talk about cars. Well, they want $19,000.00 for it. They've had it for a bunch of years, and they're calling it "CardOT.com" on their squatter page, as if that made any kind of sense whatsoever. So not only are they squatting on a domain that the community could be using, but they don't even know how to sell it because they're a bunch of fucking idiots.

Domain squatters provide nothing of value, and interfere with legitimate activity. They should be rounded up and offered the opportunity to repent before otherwise being fired into the sun.

Re:There's always that guy

[nEoN nOoDlE]

That's a perfect analogy for modern day indie game development, too. I guess things stay the same, the names just change.

Re:There's always that guy

[Anonymous Coward]

He's worse than ticket scalpers at concerts and sporting events due to the extremely low cost of investment on his part.

Other guys that pull this crap that I despise are housing speculators. Usually real estate agents, they buy a place and sit on it during the rising phase of a housing bubble, further exacerbating the problem. In the end, it's a family of poor shmucks who just want a place to live who now have to pay a much higher cost for zero extra value provided by some greedy cockroach who just sat on the place for a couple of years.

Re:There's always that guy

[Anonymous Coward]

google kind of have to - inorder to keep users - really going downhill last few years though... new maps, gmail sorting, eol policy on chromebooks etc

Re:There's always that guy

[phantomfive]

This guy isn't supporting. He's standing in the way. He is literally making it harder for people to start companies. That's different than selling food, mules and running a store.

Re:There's always that guy

[gnupun]

They built the stadium, they get to decide who plays in it and under what terms.

Who cares? They both point potential customers, who use generic keywords, to a vendor. And they both cost millions of dollars. Why is one a ripoff (generic keyword URL seller) and the other completely okay (google)?

But domain squatters didn't build anything.

You think only builders should get value? What about owners, shouldn't they get something for the valuable assets they have invested in? You should inform landlords around the world that they don't deserve rent for just owning property.

They're just taking advantage of a weakness in the system, to the detriment of everyone else.

There are only a few generic terms available out of the vast ocean of possible URLs. There is a lot of competition with dozens of big companies wanting to own one of these generic URLs because of the huge potential earnings associated due to marketing advantage when a common word is the URL. Well, the URL owner wants the business to pay for this marketing advantage. Now, tell me what legal or ethical crime the URL owner has committed in wanting millions for his asset?

Re:There's always that guy

[drinkypoo]

You sound so clueless to how business works

No, I know precisely how rent-seeking works. A scarce resource is bought up by an actor working in ill faith, and thus artificially made more scarce for the purpose of driving up prices and thus value.

Re:There's always that guy

[Solandri]

In your gold rush scenario, domain squatters would be people who bought out the stores of all their goods, then opened their own store with prices inflated by around 1,000 percent and up (judging by responses I've got from domain squatters when I've poked at them just to see what kind of assholes they were.)

That's not how economics works. If you buy all the stores in the area and inflate the prices by 1000%, that presents a business opportunity for someone to open up a new store with prices inflated by 500%. It won't be as convenient to get to, but the substantially lower price means customers will make the trek out there because the savings is worth their time. The squatter is then forced to lower his prices to a 250% markup, the new store lowers to a 125% markup, etc. This continues until the prices are the minimum markup the store owners are willing to accept.

Huge markups only persist if you manage to convince people that the markup is somehow worth it. e.g. Become a status symbol like Gucci, or Mercedes, or Apple. Or you resort to illegal means to stifle competition (threaten to break the legs of the new storeowner's kids).

For example, a squatter owns cardot.com, which would obviously be a cool place to put slashcode (or something like it, of course, since slashcode HAHAHAHA) and talk about cars. Well, they want $19,000.00 for it.

Same deal here. Just because they're asking fro $19,000 doesn't mean someone is going to pay them for it. Just like if someone marked up the store prices by 1000% doesn't mean customers are going to pay for it. It just creates an opportunity for a new entrant in the market with a smaller markup.

Domain names are (were) like real estate. The better domain names are like waterfront property. Except everything was originally sold for the flat rate of $10/yr per domain name regardless of if it was waterfront property or not. Squatting exists because of a disparity between the original price and its actual value. Unfortunately, there's no simple way to determine the value of any domain name except via this market mechanic (i.e. however much someone is willing to pay for it). So this type of markup is inevitable. A solution, as someone pointed out above, is property taxes. You tax domains based on the number of visitors they get to the site, so the net income to a squatter is much less (or even negative) than to someone using the domain name for actual productive purposes. Unfortunately, there is no global authority which has the power to tax domain name holders.

Re:There's always that guy

[drinkypoo]

You think only builders should get value? What about owners, shouldn't they get something for the valuable assets they have invested in?

Investors in a building (to use your inept example) are providing the capital that enables the building to be built. But people who buy domain names don't cause the domain names to be built, because domain names aren't built. Obviously, there is no parallel here. These people are not really investors, because they're not investing. They're just buying. They're speculators. And what we know about speculators is that they cause artificial activity in markets which has real-world negative consequences.

Now, tell me what legal or ethical crime the URL owner has committed in wanting millions for his asset?

They are interfering with legitimate use of the name, of course, which is a kind of restraint of trade. And they add nothing of value, they are enabling nothing whatsoever, they only disable. They are a net drain on society.

It's interesting, though, that you mention rent, which is really just an evolved form of theft based on artificial scarcity. Every so often, a whole bunch of stuff has to be privatized because a society isn't working, and that's because of rent-seekers. Their highest goal is to be a leech on the arse of society.

Re:There's always that guy

[Anonymous Coward]

suppose someone bought up a bunch of painting from an up and coming artist. he put them in a storage locker for 20 years and then sold them when they were more valuable is that painting squatting.

suppose someone bought a bunch of bitcoins when they first came out for pennies each, never used them and sold them a few years later for crazy profit, is that bitcoin squatting

you can apply this to anything. in both cases there is a limited supply of the product. someone who wants it is being deprived of it for a number of years. why is this any different then speculating on any other product.

Re:There's always that guy

[Em Adespoton]

My point here is that he's charging the same amount for the domains as a default registry charge -- $0.

But you're lying. That's not what he's charging. Stop lying. Then you won't be so wrong.

But I'm not -- he does have other conditions to transfers, but so do the registrars themselves. It's one thing to say I'm incorrect and point at some evidence that shows this (for example, is he also waiting for domains to expire and then gobbling them up, posting them as "for sale" for exorbitant prices? If so, that's a valid point), but it's another to just say I'm intentionally misleading people about it.

My idea to stop hoarders...

[afaiktoit]

not sure if its possible but make the price double for every domain you buy(10,20,40,etc). It'd get expensive to stock up on them pretty quick but enough for a large company to own several.

Re:My idea to stop hoarders...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like this could work. It might be simpler to limit individuals, companies, and corporations to full ownership of a dozen domains that at any one time. Any domains that they own beyond that limit should come up for auction periodically. This would allow time to develop value in domains beyond the limit, but force spinning them off to another company or owner within a period of time.

Re:My idea to stop hoarders...

[Skidborg]

That seems wildly unenforceable.

Re:My idea to stop hoarders...

[drinkypoo]

That seems wildly unenforceable.

Make the domains per-snailmail-address, and mail a code necessary for use of the domain to whoever registers it. Yeah, ugh. Snail mail. But anyway. At least it makes it more of a PITA to squat, though not impossible.

Re:My idea to stop hoarders...

[pspahn]

So when I want to launch a new domain name, I have to wait for something to come in the mail? Are you fucking serious?

Re:My idea to stop hoarders...

[drinkypoo]

So when I want to launch a new domain name, I have to wait for something to come in the mail? Are you fucking serious?

Only the first time. After that, you have a code associated with your address, and any additional domain registrations can be done with that code. When you compare it to having to wait possibly days for a domain squatter to get back to you and then having them make an insulting offer of thousands of dollars for a domain they've literally been sitting on for years and thus it's been costing them money and earning them nothing it seems positively efficient. It also gets out of having to positively confirm your identity, all you need is a mailing address and you only need to use it once. It also helps satisfy the legal requirement to have a valid identity associated with the domain registration.

Re:My idea to stop hoarders...

[Skidborg]

That doesn't really help things. It's not hard to lie about that,or find people willing to whore out their home address for a fraction of what you'll save from spreading out the addresses between properties.

USA.com?

[Tablizer]

A start-up called "usa.com"? It must be for lobbyists: the country is for sale.

Re: USA.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the University of South Alabama in Mobile.

Money in them urls

[rmdingler]

Medicare.com went for just under US $5 million last year. Sex.com and Bet.com were million dollar hits.

Insurance.com went with some other minor assets for over $35 million in 2010.

Re:Money in them urls

[Bob_Who]

Medicare.com went for just under US $5 million last year. Sex.com and Bet.com were million dollar hits.

Insurance.com went with some other minor assets for over $35 million in 2010.

It figures. Medicare, Porn, Gambling, and the Protection Racket can all afford to pay ridiculous ransoms because its what they do best... take your money!

should be illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be illegal just like huge domains. If your not using it and don't have a company related you shouldn't be able to own it. They buy them for prices ranging from 99 cents to 7 dollars and then ask hundreds to hundreds of thousands for them Thankfully you can at least get it if you hold the trademark. They held one of my friends domains hostage, the hit counter showed 3 visits since they bought it and are asking 3 grand cuz its his companies name. Records show they bought it for 99 cents, he's currently in the trademark process.

Re: should be illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

They seen a company had the same name (he didn't have a website) and bought it. They said because it had a popular "key word", which is the loop hole they use to get away with it. This way they can say its not their intentions even though it is. Then they used a shell company to send him emails to try to get his company to buy it where they "the register" is not connected. No other company on all of the inernet is named the same as his (very unique name) which makes it 100% clear they targeted them.

Re: should be illegal

[sabri]

They seen a company had the same name (he didn't have a website) and bought it. They said because it had a popular "key word", which is the loop hole they use to get away with it. This way they can say its not their intentions even though it is. Then they used a shell company to send him emails to try to get his company to buy it where they "the register" is not connected. No other company on all of the inernet is named the same as his (very unique name) which makes it 100% clear they targeted them.

I have something similar happen to me, when I started the trademark process for a company that I founded. Within a week after filing, I was contacted by several "representatives" for obscure TLDs primarily in Asia, who informed me that someone had tried to register $companyname.asia and other TLDs. Being the rightful owner, I was allowed to supersede that registration. For a fee, of course. The initial mail was:

Dear Sir,

We are the department of Asian Domain Registration Service in China. I have something to confirm with you. We formally received an application on April 11, 2014 that a company which self-styled "Paest Investment Co. Ltd". were applying to register some Asian countries top-level domain names.

Now we are handling this registration, and after our initial checking, we found the name were similar to your company's, so we need to check with you whether your company has authorized that company to register these names. If you authorized this, we will finish the registration at once. If you did not authorize, please let us know within 7 workdays, so that we will handle this issue better.

Re: should be illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Hugedomains did the same to me. Managed to get it back off them for $1k. Sneaked on their site (don't keep hitting their whois server/keyword search or the price goes up) and nabbed it when I saw it wasn't too crazy a price. If you wait a while the price drops as well as they calculate the offer price based on whois hits.

It sucks but that's pretty much how a lot of business works. Once you get out of the safe haven of employment law and into the cock-fighting pit that is business to business it is pretty nasty out there.

Re: should be illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Huge domains is working the system for sure, I hope they get shut down one of these days.

Re: should be illegal

[namgge]

In my experience, you can safely ignore this scam. I've had several of these, have ignored them, and the domains in question were still available for anyone to register months later. Namgge

Re:I bet

[Anonymous Coward]

frostypiss.com is available right now too...

Lot of complaining but no solutions

[bsdasym]

Guy who gives away free stuff gets angry when guy taking free stuff turns around and sells it. News at 11. We will also interview guy who didn't get any of the free stuff to begin with and feels like he's entitled to some now that he understands there is money to be made.

Re:Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy with mental deficiency who regards life as merely a game with rules gets angry and confused when rest of humanity with concept of ethics and values raise objections.

I can see why psychopathy is popular at the top of big business - the market doesn't give a fuck about you - but I fail to understand why the population is so tolerant of it.

Re: Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy complains about complaining; provides no comfort.

Re:Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like flood of commercials - the cheapest way to deal with them is to accept them. The same with psychopaths. You have to accept that they go to the top. To prevent them moving to the top you need to actively fight them and this can be very unpleasant demanding and require also to be like them only psychopaths can switch their empathy systems on and off apparently - when you become an asshole this is for life.

Re:Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see why psychopathy is popular at the top of big business - the market doesn't give a fuck about you - but I fail to understand why the population is so tolerant of it.

Because, my friend, the population is just convinced that if it is allowed to go on, someday, somehow, they'll be the ones profiting from it.

Re:Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

Well hello there, marketing major. Heard of AdBlock?

Now let's see, why would a psychopathic asshole like you suggest "just accept the assholes" because you're an asshole, aren't you?

Re:Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

The population is enamored with money. They admire anyone who has money, regardless of how it's obtained. Nazi gold is good because it's money.

Re:Lot of complaining but no solutions

[vakuona]

Ad block is only a minor annoyance at the moment. When it reaches critical mass, sites will find ways to block the adblock users.

Re: Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just an example of tragedy of the commons. Been ruining shit for centuries that one.

Typically sorts itself out for a while after the inevitable resource war.

Re:Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

This has already been tried in various forms from paywalls to popups to simple blocking. Most sites that go down this route go out of business.

Re:Lot of complaining but no solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is a very unpopular question. Many answers come to my mind, but here is some direction I can give you.

Think 1984 and Brave New World. Both explain the manipulation of history and language towards the aim of
psychological domination. The latter explains the sedation, though beyond drugs, material gains and twisted
passions are used to obscure what is really going on - though they do know, they can't grasp the true implications.

The problem is that these weren't just fictional stories. They were political warnings from those inside, who saw
the machine forming, as it was an extension of an already existing set of tools; it was simply that much more powerful.

My friend says "its just all cookies" - meaning, you can believe in whatever you want to believe in. I won't
expose the serious flaw in that. But you eventually are chosen by, or choose, something to believe in.

I have come to understand that you should compare and contrast the psychological effects of whatever
system you use; with that in mind, I've found man has manipulated himself to such a perverse degree that
whenever you take him out of the equation, the truth remains. So subtract culture and society.... :(

captch: elevated

should be illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

They held one of my friends domains hostage, the hit counter showed 3 visits since they bought it and are asking 3 grand cuz its his companies name. Records show they bought it for 99 cents, he's currently in the trademark process.

How did they buy it if it was already registered to your friend?
Or did you mean it wasn't actually 'his', but a domain he wanted?

This is why the lawyers are winning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like this could work. It might be simpler to limit individuals, companies, and corporations to full ownership of a dozen domains that at any one time. Any domains that they own beyond that limit should come up for auction periodically. This would allow time to develop value in domains beyond the limit, but force spinning them off to another company or owner within a period of time.

Neither of these would work. The premium domains are lucrative enough that you could just setup a 'scheme' where you offer free money (say $100) to anyone who signs up to your scheme. Once part of the scheme you get to use their ownership rights, while through a legal contract, remain the effective economic owner. Lots of people would sign up, loop hole created, $$$. As an aside this would make buying domains for legitimate users (lets say you want to buy the .io, .net etc for your company) much more expensive and difficult, making things easier for the hoggers. Though they would no doubt also start a parking service where they can make money off the arbitrage.

This is why the lawyers and bankers are winning.

You picked the wrong career.

If I'd had a few bucks and no scruples...

[Vitriol Angst]

Having a bunch of domain names is no sign of "investment" or "savvy" -- it's having a few bucks at the right time.

Not sure if these people have to pay the wholesale renewal price of $15 or not, but it seems to me that you shouldn't be able to squat on names of websites not in use, or vaguely sounding like a website you have in use. I can understand "donaldtrumpbadhair" as a domain Donald Trump might reserve.

I predict we will soon have intelligent agents who take care of our internet connections, and the naming will be moot for all but the most visible web domains. Then the battle will be over the "processing of content" as the agents digest information and present it to the user. We can see this in the case of SIRI on the iOS platform -- it can get you right to your target without much of a glance at all the intervening marketing. The internet will become more and more of a service platform -- just as software is becoming.

Then someone is going to patent the patterns of connections. Maybe we'll have pattern squatters.

People Look At Domain Names?

[Greyfox]

Being in the first 4-5 entries on a google search is worth a lot of money. I didn't think anyone looks at domain names anymore. We may as well just be using IP addresses at this point.

Re:People Look At Domain Names?

[seoras]

I don't believe that [keyword].com gives you the guaranteed 1st page Google results position it used to.

Google did a shake down a few years ago in one of their updates.
If they thought you could pay them for the traffic they gave you for free organically they'd drop your ranking to make you pay for it.
("Don't be Evil"... yeah, right..)

Web users will type in the noun of what they are looking for appending .com instead of going via search.
That's the value in arguably the most valuable .com there is sex.com

The greatest value I see in having [keyword].com is in the mindset of potential customers.
It's a leg up in branding right at the beginning which is what this guy knows and wants to cash in on.

People are more likely to trust medical advice and products from website called www.doctor.com
That's the power of a brand and a .com is a brand Ace card.

are all treasure troves "veritable"

[ionymous]

just sayin

A Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

One way to check such abuses would be to mandate that only the registrars can sell domain names. An individual can buy as many domains as he pleases but would not be permitted to legally resell them. An individual could divest himself of domain names only through expiration or a direct return to the registrar.

If a company called Acme Foods desired the domain acmefoods.com but the domain was already held then that company would be forever out of luck unless the holder allowed the domain to expire or returned it to the registrar. But no direct sale between the holder and Acme Foods would be legally permitted.

I can't see how this scheme would fail. Maybe others have more devious vision than I.

Um...

[rsilvergun]

Are you trying to imply he's doing anything other then rent seeking? If you are you're doing a terrible job at it. How much money is this guy putting up? If the answer isn't "enough to buy his share of partial ownership" then the only thing he brings are the domains he's squatting on. To wit: rent seeking.

Re:Um...

[quantaman]

Are you trying to imply he's doing anything other then rent seeking? If you are you're doing a terrible job at it. How much money is this guy putting up? If the answer isn't "enough to buy his share of partial ownership" then the only thing he brings are the domains he's squatting on. To wit: rent seeking.

No, he's implying the OPs tactic for screwing him over wouldn't work (even if it were legal).

Looking at it more positively....

[seoras]

You want that beach front property but can't afford the section with the view to build on.
The land owner says "I'll lease you the land if I get to use the property on the weekends you aren't using it".
What's not to like?

What this guy is offering seems like a fairly good idea and not a bad deal to me, so why all the hate?
It's just a new spin on raising VC or Angel money.
So taking money is ok but not renting a domain name? That doesn't make sense.

The new TLD's aren't yet bestowing the branding power that the good old .com does.
However, since the advent of Apps, domain names have lost a lot of ground to App Store ranking and App marketing.
Google stopped first page ranking of the domain name for the keyword a few years ago so it does not convey automatic organic search dominance either.

I hope anyone getting involved with these guys realises these points when they are negotiating away a stake in their startup.

Re:Looking at it more positively....

[Anonymous Coward]

But TLDs have literally never been of importance.

Everyone searched or linked URLs to each other. Basically nobody cared that the TLD was .com, or .net, or anything else. If they did, they'd be more pissed that they are using the WRONG TLDs 90% of the time, if not more.
TLD abuse was rampant from the start.

Whether it was webrings, sharing on IRC or search index, these were far more important than a bunch of letters after the URL.
In fact, TLDs have only caused problems. They should be eliminated.

Eww

[wonkey_monkey]

The Man Squatting On Millions of Dollars

Sounds like the title of this year's Turner Prize winner. Bloody modern art.

Corning Glass, Patent holders

[Anonymous Coward]

You all do realize that most of the people who made money off of the various 'gold rushes' haven't been prospectors? They've been 'support' people. They guys who sold the food and mules, operated the boats and stores. The poor fools who bought the mules, food and transportation got to hack it out in the backcountry. A few struck it rich. The rest didn't

If we are going to use the gold rush analogy, Corning Glass can be compared to 'wagon makers" in the old days, and due to the new gold rush tied to Al Gore's 'information superhighway' Corning Glass sure made tons and tons of moolah making fiber optics

Patent holders too raked in truckloads of $$$ and they are the modern version of pickaxe suppliers

I am still trying to figure out who is the modern version of "Levi Jeans", the one who supplied denim pants to them gold diggers?

Any idea??

Re:Corning Glass, Patent holders

[Anonymous Coward]

microsoft

dot COM is so last decade.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got the market cornered on .ORG

Some of you better be trolling...

[EdwardFurlong]

You want the government to tax perceived values of unused domains? Or limit how long a domain can go "unused"? Or limit how many someone can own? There are many companies who have "prime" domains. The point here is this company is trading the domain name for a cut in the business. What are some big web names out there... google. Bing. Yahoo. Slickdeals. Woot. Autotrader. Craigslist. Facebook. Twitter. Ebay. Aside from weather.com... off the top of my head i can not really think of some site with a simple name that is a "goto". And you can get weather hundreds of other places. Valuing a domain name is not the same as actual land. Maybe this is just called squatting because nobody wants to buy these for millions. I bet someone actually offers him millions he would take it. Better to spend your advertising budget on plong.com selling perfume than giving a cut of your business to this guy or giving him millions for it. I think everyone is just pissed off they did not register these names first...

Re:Some of you better be trolling...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we're sad that such an unethical system allows some to get excessively rich without contributing anything. That's unconscionable and if people don't think it is, then they are living in denial.

Those with more than their fair share will always defend greed and their own lack of effort despite all evidence to the contrary.

Re: Some of you better be trolling...

[Anonymous Coward]

We sad to see someone else profit when we feel nothing of value has been created. We don't want others to gain an unfair advantage. Return the domains and let big companies buy them for 5 dollars. Why you get to profit peasant?

He is a slumlord!

[Newer Guy]

What makes him any different from the people who buy up housing for cheap, pay off politicians and put 50 people into 5 rooms? He is a slumlord, pure and simple.

Re:He is a slumlord!

[Anonymous Coward]

can not tell if serious.
if serious, you are retarded. explanation not needed.

stupiddomainthatissortoflikewhatiwanted.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so glad that someone is making money off of being a jackass. Nothing like getting a ho domain name. "Upgraydde gona get his money" --Idiocracy

Clickbait

[Tony Isaac]

HE'S the guy that puts up all those web sites that have nothing on them except links that are designed to get unsuspecting people to click on them, for the ad revenue.

Asshole

[allo]

Domain grabbing should be illegal

Re:Asshole

[aardvarkjoe]

Domain grabbing should be illegal

What harm is being done to society? Even if he just sits on those domains forever, who cares if "email.com" doesn't point to something useful?

Re:Asshole

[Anonymous Coward]

What GOOD is being done to society?

greed is just a form of evil

[Anonymous Coward]

and that's the main problem with us ... we're more evil than not

Read this link (code enforcement)

[Anonymous Coward]

They are dumb (or see the place as a waste worth giving up, then some smart guy buys it for pennies on the dollar fixing it up to make huge profits after): On code enforcement? I know ALL about it, AND how to use it to MY ADVANTAGE as a landlord and why (tenants busting things to 'claim habitability' & they lose)... read this http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... since it IS, how it works, when you're a decent landlord vs. bogus tenants.

Treat domains like foreclosed homes or trademarks

[Uberbah]

If the rent-seeker doesn't use it, they lose it.

Get off my personal name domain lawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking squatters who buy personal names or family name domains and then try and get $497 usd to purchase it should be shot in the face.

You're just scum

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know wtf you're talking about (it's rental court involved shit for brains). Of course you're probably just welfare trash that I was speaking of anyhow, since it really shows how fucking IGNORANT YOU ARE, you penniless little bastard. That's right. Bastard. Do you even know "who yo daddy be", scumbag? Doubt it.

Shoot him.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate domain squatters very very deeply.

It's "you're" welfare shitbrain

[Anonymous Coward]

Your real name's "lucien86" douche dumbfuck? No.

Re:It's "you're" welfare shitbrain

[Anonymous Coward]

Douchian86's real name's Mr. Freeman (sockpuppeteer)

Well, it's a good business model

[sabbede]

but I'm not sure it's a morally/ethically/socially good model.

There should be a larger annual fee for domains

[Salgat]

There needs to be a sufficient cost on domains (something like $100/year) to ensure that they are being used for a legitimate reason. I have no problem with squatters if they are willing to pay into the system; however, they are currently paying almost nothing and just blindly sweeping up every available domain to create a no-value-added business.