Domain sharks
Someone who’s unfamiliar with the seedy world of spam and SEO recently told me a domain shark had offered to sell a domain he’d expressed an interest in - for $ 50000. That’s fifty thousand dollars!
This is a domain shark that’s been dragged into Wipo arbitration multiple times. Outfits like theirs sometimes win cases involving general dictionary terms, but generally loses when the complainant has a legitimate interest in the domain, when that domain is not so general as to be a plain dictionary term.
I suggested to the person who asked me about this, that they were trying to shake him down. That he should shake them down instead. Exactly what company will respond to what is unknown. Might be an idea to collect information on how various domain sharks have responded to various approaches? A wiki, maybe?
In other news, I’m still working on that project I mentioned before. Which means no time for investigations.
November 5th, 2006 at 7:03 am
“Domain shark”? or just someone who collects good domain names in order to sell them at a higher market price later on? $50′000 is not over the top, for a good domain name. If you check the domain after-market sites you will see much higher prices being asked, and being actually paid, for good domains.
November 5th, 2006 at 9:52 am
This was not a “good domain name”. So yes, that was a shakedown.
November 5th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Was it a trademarked term? If not I’d have a hard time seeing your point.
November 5th, 2006 at 10:39 am
I don’t know if it was actually trademarked. But definitely a business name. You have to remember that this is someone who isn’t a part of the SEO/spamming world, so you can basically forget the usual questions. It’s not about a directly money making site.
November 5th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Ann Elisabeth! How are you? I’ve been thinking about you lately…I hope all is well. Please write soon.
November 7th, 2006 at 10:12 am
I started getting spam hits with referrals to a university site. Someone there had set up a message board and left it unmonitored, so naturally had filled up with pharma/porn spam links, and the bots were spamming me with referrals to it. I contacted the IT department at the university and they have taken the site down.