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A few years ago I registered a short (five letter) nonsense word as a .com domain for a side project. I ended up using a different name so I let the .com expire

A few years ago I registered a short (five letter) nonsense word as a .com domain for a side project. I ended up using a different name so I let the .com expire. It was instantly registered by someone else. But I just checked, and it’s available now. (Not squatted.) I think some people run systems to buy up domains that expire, in case the expiration is a mistake. Then they can make a few bucks selling the domain back to the dummy who let it expire accidentally. There’s a limit to how much you can make doing this, though, as any big company probably has a trademark on their domain. And if they do, they can just ask ICANN to seize it from you. I think that’s different from someone who registered a common word (or many) and holds onto them, hoping to sell them to people who want them. The domain squatting business is kind of like poker. You have a slow bleed of costs from annual domain fees (the ante in poker) and few deals to offset that (winning a hand in poker). Over time you have to either score some big deals, or eventually cut your costs. This limits the utility of squatting random nonsense domains for very long.

tomhoward 5y ago
I've been both harmed and helped by this at different times - in both cases by HugeDomains. The domain for a brand name of a product line of my father's small business lapsed when I forgot to renew it, and it was registered by HugeDomains with an asking price of US $2600. The business unit had mostly wound down and it's not important enough to spend that kind of money on; it's just a bad look when people browse directly to that address. I registered the .net, and I'm hoping they'll quit renewing the .com some time and we'll be able to get it back for an ordinary price. It's quite obscure so no legitimate buyer will want it. I'm happy for them to keep wasting their money in the meantime. Another time, I was starting a new company, and had an idea for a name that had personal significance, but involved common-enough words that you would expect it to be taken already. It turned out HugeDomains was squatting it, and asking about $2500. In this case it was worth spending that money to buy it off them, so I did, and have been a happy owner of that domain ever since. I'm not happy about supporting domain squatting, and I've wondered about how it could be prevented, and even considered starting some kind of "benevolent" squatting service to beat the extortionate practices that HugeDomains seems to be undertaking in cases where people just forget to renew, but maybe the way they do it is the only way to do that kind of thing economically, and that only a complete overhaul of the domain name market could open the way for better practices.
- a1371 5y ago
  Funny how your purchase is fueling their squatting.
  - tomhoward 5y ago
    I specifically wrote I'm not happy about that part of it. Have you never bought anything that has any kind of negative externality?
- ohashi 5y ago
  You make it sound like you forgot and it was immediately taken, but if it was a .com it would have gone through the expiration process and not have been working for quite some time. Nobody noticed website wasn't online for weeks before it would have been dropped and re-registered. HugeDomains is a massive operation though, I think they are the largest drop catcher at this point and that's their business model. If they are selling for $2500/ea roughly, they need to sell around 1:300 to remain profitable. A lot of people try to imagine what a better domain market looks like and a more fair way to distribute things. I don't think I've ever heard a proposal that looked better. Since we know there is economic value, people are going to invest heavily (look at crypto space) and not create any real value. I think we ended up at a local maxima because of the organic development of domain names and the internet. There might be a scenario where everyone acted in some communist good faith best effort system, but humans just aren't capable of really doing that.
  - tomhoward 5y ago
    Yeah like I said, that product line was dormant and nobody (the business or customers) were paying much attention to it, hence it was forgotten about for so long that we lost it altogether. We only intended to renew it for legacy purposes, hence not being motivated to pay so much to get it back. I think you’re right about the market.
somehnacct3757 5y ago
It doesn't strike me as an expensive hobby to get into, and the tech is kinda cool. Crawl whois records to build a list of domains expiring soon. Automate registering them for 1 year and pointing to your squatter page. That's the main loop; from there you can optimize efficiency with all sorts of weekend projects. I wonder if ppl are doing it just cuz it's something to do, and it costs less than golf clubs
- voakbasda 5y ago
  If I was going take on that much risk, I think I’d rather write a stock trading bot. At least that’s vaguely ethical…
- nuclearnice1 5y ago
  On the tech side, there is some art to being the first to catch the domain as it becomes available to register. Some domains go to auction now instead of becoming available for normal registration. Then a whole world of research could be done on the value of a particular domain and a the right squatter spam content.
- myth_drannon 5y ago
  Or you can just use park.io
  - somehnacct3757 5y ago
    Hah I love it. They figured out the best way to monetize it was to pass the speculative action on to a lower layer of suckers. They even hold the auction before the domain expires, so they have relatively little skin in the game.
- Normille 5y ago
  "ppl" --fuck's sake. Just spell "people" properly. This isn't Reddit
  - simonklitj 5y ago

tomhoward 5y ago

I've been both harmed and helped by this at different times - in both cases by HugeDomains. The domain for a brand name of a product line of my father's small business lapsed when I forgot to renew it, and it was registered by HugeDomains with an asking price of US $2600. The business unit had mostly wound down and it's not important enough to spend that kind of money on; it's just a bad look when people browse directly to that address. I registered the .net, and I'm hoping they'll quit renewing the .com some time and we'll be able to get it back for an ordinary price. It's quite obscure so no legitimate buyer will want it. I'm happy for them to keep wasting their money in the meantime. Another time, I was starting a new company, and had an idea for a name that had personal significance, but involved common-enough words that you would expect it to be taken already. It turned out HugeDomains was squatting it, and asking about $2500. In this case it was worth spending that money to buy it off them, so I did, and have been a happy owner of that domain ever since. I'm not happy about supporting domain squatting, and I've wondered about how it could be prevented, and even considered starting some kind of "benevolent" squatting service to beat the extortionate practices that HugeDomains seems to be undertaking in cases where people just forget to renew, but maybe the way they do it is the only way to do that kind of thing economically, and that only a complete overhaul of the domain name market could open the way for better practices.

a1371 5y ago
Funny how your purchase is fueling their squatting.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  I specifically wrote I'm not happy about that part of it. Have you never bought anything that has any kind of negative externality?
ohashi 5y ago
You make it sound like you forgot and it was immediately taken, but if it was a .com it would have gone through the expiration process and not have been working for quite some time. Nobody noticed website wasn't online for weeks before it would have been dropped and re-registered. HugeDomains is a massive operation though, I think they are the largest drop catcher at this point and that's their business model. If they are selling for $2500/ea roughly, they need to sell around 1:300 to remain profitable. A lot of people try to imagine what a better domain market looks like and a more fair way to distribute things. I don't think I've ever heard a proposal that looked better. Since we know there is economic value, people are going to invest heavily (look at crypto space) and not create any real value. I think we ended up at a local maxima because of the organic development of domain names and the internet. There might be a scenario where everyone acted in some communist good faith best effort system, but humans just aren't capable of really doing that.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  Yeah like I said, that product line was dormant and nobody (the business or customers) were paying much attention to it, hence it was forgotten about for so long that we lost it altogether. We only intended to renew it for legacy purposes, hence not being motivated to pay so much to get it back. I think you’re right about the market.

somehnacct3757 5y ago

It doesn't strike me as an expensive hobby to get into, and the tech is kinda cool. Crawl whois records to build a list of domains expiring soon. Automate registering them for 1 year and pointing to your squatter page. That's the main loop; from there you can optimize efficiency with all sorts of weekend projects. I wonder if ppl are doing it just cuz it's something to do, and it costs less than golf clubs

voakbasda 5y ago
If I was going take on that much risk, I think I’d rather write a stock trading bot. At least that’s vaguely ethical…
nuclearnice1 5y ago
On the tech side, there is some art to being the first to catch the domain as it becomes available to register. Some domains go to auction now instead of becoming available for normal registration. Then a whole world of research could be done on the value of a particular domain and a the right squatter spam content.
myth_drannon 5y ago
Or you can just use park.io
- somehnacct3757 5y ago
  Hah I love it. They figured out the best way to monetize it was to pass the speculative action on to a lower layer of suckers. They even hold the auction before the domain expires, so they have relatively little skin in the game.
Normille 5y ago
"ppl" --fuck's sake. Just spell "people" properly. This isn't Reddit
- simonklitj 5y ago