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The Man Squatting On Millions of Dollars Worth of Domain Names

Posted by timothy on from the your-name-here dept.

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.

4 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. New TLDs will hopefully end this practice by Britz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. There's always that guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".

    1. Re:There's always that guy by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Re:How to fuck this guy over by codeButcher · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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)

    --
    Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.