5 ms·

I have a last name that's extremely uncommon. MyLastName.com was available for many, many years. I thought about buying it a few times in the last 20 or so year

I have a last name that's extremely uncommon. MyLastName.com was available for many, many years. I thought about buying it a few times in the last 20 or so years but I don't have any use for it so I didn't. Two years ago it was bought by a domain squatter who was probably iterating through the white pages. Now that I can't have it I want it (I guess human nature) but they are asking like $2k for it. It seems somehow "unfair" that "my" last name is being "held hostage" by some faceless company that's just trying to make a quick buck.

jeremymcanally 10y ago
Start a business with your name, trademark it in a certain domain, file a claim with ICANN. Long process, but might be cheaper. :)
- eximius 10y ago
  This is, in general, about as sleazy as the squatter.
  - fapjacks 10y ago
    Exactly. And definitely not guaranteed to work. Just pay a visit to nissan.com and read about the scumbag efforts of the car company to swipe that domain from some random dude who's owned it -- and isn't a squatter! -- for years and years.
- duskwuff 10y ago
  Almost as expensive (UDRP claims start around $1500), and more importantly, it'll fail. WIPO isn't that dumb -- they can look up the registration date of your trademark, check WHOIS, and determine that the domain was registered before your trademark existed.
  - grrowl 10y ago
    > and determine that the domain was registered before your trademark existed It's a shame they don't determine that the domain was squatted before your trademark existed. But it seems in their interest to give the benefit of the doubt to the one buying many, many domains yearly.
bradleyjg 10y ago
mylastname.com was already gone in 1999, so I had to settle for mylastname.net. Too bad it didn't occur to me to secure it in 1996. If Tucows is willing to sell they certainly aren't publicizing it.
- guycook 10y ago
  Spare a thought for us Cooks of the world. Four letters, a noun and a verb... After the gTLD explosion I thought I could finally snare a decent one but they all went into the $1000+ category immediately, excepting niches like cook.republican, cook.accountant etc. Luckily some did eventually come down, I managed to get cook.run for a more reasonable $50/year
  - shavingspiders 10y ago
    I managed to have a bit of fun with .party and .science. firstname.party is great to have.
SrslyJosh 10y ago
Welcome to rentier capitalism.

jeremymcanally 10y ago

Start a business with your name, trademark it in a certain domain, file a claim with ICANN. Long process, but might be cheaper. :)

eximius 10y ago
This is, in general, about as sleazy as the squatter.
- fapjacks 10y ago
  Exactly. And definitely not guaranteed to work. Just pay a visit to nissan.com and read about the scumbag efforts of the car company to swipe that domain from some random dude who's owned it -- and isn't a squatter! -- for years and years.
duskwuff 10y ago
Almost as expensive (UDRP claims start around $1500), and more importantly, it'll fail. WIPO isn't that dumb -- they can look up the registration date of your trademark, check WHOIS, and determine that the domain was registered before your trademark existed.
- grrowl 10y ago
  > and determine that the domain was registered before your trademark existed It's a shame they don't determine that the domain was squatted before your trademark existed. But it seems in their interest to give the benefit of the doubt to the one buying many, many domains yearly.

bradleyjg 10y ago

mylastname.com was already gone in 1999, so I had to settle for mylastname.net. Too bad it didn't occur to me to secure it in 1996. If Tucows is willing to sell they certainly aren't publicizing it.

guycook 10y ago
Spare a thought for us Cooks of the world. Four letters, a noun and a verb... After the gTLD explosion I thought I could finally snare a decent one but they all went into the $1000+ category immediately, excepting niches like cook.republican, cook.accountant etc. Luckily some did eventually come down, I managed to get cook.run for a more reasonable $50/year
- shavingspiders 10y ago
  I managed to have a bit of fun with .party and .science. firstname.party is great to have.

SrslyJosh 10y ago

Welcome to rentier capitalism.