[Web4lib] What is the best way to get your domain name?

[Cary Gordon]

If it is held by a professional squatter, the bad news is that there
is no practical way to get a them to let go of a name. It costs them
next to nothing to hold onto it, so they have no incentive to sell
cheaply (for them -- absurdly high to anyone else) and they will never
let them expire. They generally price them at the highest level
possible where it is still not worthwhile to sue them or go to
arbitration before the UDRP, not that there is any guarantee that you
would win such a suit or contest. With the usual TLDs (.com, etc.),
there is very little chance of winning a case that does not involve a
person's legal name or a registered trademark.

This isn't some retired felonious grandmother looking for a
get-rich-quick opportunity. It is a nearly billion dollar a year
business. Kevin Ham, one of the most successful squatters wrote a
system in the '90s that polls the root DNS servers and identifies good
targets. The big squatters like Ham have deals with registrars so that
when one of those names expires, it automatically transfers to them.
Ham owns something like half a million names.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Cary

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 1:51 PM, Samantha Yeung <libit.tol at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder if other libraries have run into this similar situation.  We are
> interested in getting a particular domain name that is currently owned by a
> commercial outfit that does domain parking.  We tried domain buy back and
> also waited for it to expire.  Naturally, none of these strategy led us to
> the domain.  I wouldl ike to see if other libraries have dealt with this and
> how they went by getting this resolve without paying a whole lot of money
> for it.
>
> TIA,
> Samantha
> Library Information Systems Supervisor
> Thousand Oaks Library
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>



-- 
Cary Gordon
The Cherry Hill Company
http://chillco.com