5 ms·

I got a domain transferred to me for free (minus the 1-year extension I had to do when registering a domain with that registrar) because the registrar was holdi

I got a domain transferred to me for free (minus the 1-year extension I had to do when registering a domain with that registrar) because the registrar was holding an expired domain that happened to be my name. They had a policy of doing a free transfer (with 1-year registration) if you could prove you had a reason for it to be yours. My credit card info with the name matching the domain was a simple no-brainer (oddly enough - for close to 5 years after I got the domain, I'd get 404 hits in my logs for sites about WWF (this was pre-WWE rebranding) wrestler pages ...apparently whoever'd had it before me was a huge pro wrestling fan)

lmarcos 5y ago
Interesting. Was the domain equal to your full name, first name, some other combination? (e.g., johnsmith.example, smith.example, john.smith.example, smith.john.example) If it's the first case (johnsmith.example), isn't it tricky to discern between "hey that domain is a concatenation of my name and surname!" VS "no, you're not right, the domain is a concatenation of the strings 'jo' and 'hnsmith'. 'jo' is my nickname, 'hnsmith' is the name of my company/club/whatever)
- warrenm 5y ago
  it was firstnamelastname.com, yes :) As for the "tricky" aspect ... I suppose if my name were a little different, or, perhaps, if my middle initial or name was in there, too, it could have been "tricky": but when you can simply ram my first and last name together and get the domain ... it's fairly straightforward :) That said, it was only a 'free' transfer because the registrar was holding the domain name, and I had a valid claim Now say it was something like lomeintogo.com instead Establishing whether it's "lo mein to go" or "Lomé in Togo" or "Lo! Me into Go!" (minus the punctuation, of course) might be more difficult. However, if you had a legitimate claim, they'd transfer it to you (if there was more than one "legitimate" claim, it was first-come, first-serve, so far as I can recall)

lmarcos 5y ago

Interesting. Was the domain equal to your full name, first name, some other combination? (e.g., johnsmith.example, smith.example, john.smith.example, smith.john.example) If it's the first case (johnsmith.example), isn't it tricky to discern between "hey that domain is a concatenation of my name and surname!" VS "no, you're not right, the domain is a concatenation of the strings 'jo' and 'hnsmith'. 'jo' is my nickname, 'hnsmith' is the name of my company/club/whatever)

warrenm 5y ago
it was firstnamelastname.com, yes :) As for the "tricky" aspect ... I suppose if my name were a little different, or, perhaps, if my middle initial or name was in there, too, it could have been "tricky": but when you can simply ram my first and last name together and get the domain ... it's fairly straightforward :) That said, it was only a 'free' transfer because the registrar was holding the domain name, and I had a valid claim Now say it was something like lomeintogo.com instead Establishing whether it's "lo mein to go" or "Lomé in Togo" or "Lo! Me into Go!" (minus the punctuation, of course) might be more difficult. However, if you had a legitimate claim, they'd transfer it to you (if there was more than one "legitimate" claim, it was first-come, first-serve, so far as I can recall)