4 ms·

Kevin Ham, the $300 million master of Web domains (2007)

22 points by jasonlbaptiste 18y ago

karl11 18y ago
Why isn't this illegal, and why does Yahoo serve ads to this clown?
- krav 18y ago
  The answer, unfortunately, is simple. Yahoo and Google make a lot of money from these practices. They've enabled all this to happen. Do no evil, eh?
catone 18y ago
It should probably be noted that this article is from June 2007.
ctingom 18y ago
I don't know about you, but I always kick myself for missing the gold rush to buy hot domain names. It is so obvious in retrospect.
- allenbrunson 18y ago
  yeah. i could have registered "sex.com" for FREE at the right moment in time, and i would be set for life.
- nikblack 18y ago
  how about instead of thinking about all the things you have already missed, think about what you could be missing right now. there is always a new opportunity - better to take part in them than to read about them in retrospect.
- daleharvey 18y ago
  I dont, I like to spend my time actually creating wealth and helping people. not taking advantage of a system that was just too well meaning from the start to try and screw people out of a few million. how nice would it be if the domain hoarders werent around now. "this is why we cant have nice things"
- axod 18y ago
  I'd much rather be known for doing something vaguely worthwhile, than being the guy who grabbed all the domains. Grabbing domains, not using them, and trying to sell them is pretty much blackmail. It's certainly not a nice way to behave IMHO. The issue though is that domain names are pretty much free to register, but obviously have a far higher value to some people - a loophole that people exploit to make a quick buck. The other funny disconnect is how little traffic some "premium" domains get. >> "Greetings.com, but Ham grabs it anyway, for $350,000." Quantcast says it gets 8,100 US visitors a month.
  - omouse 18y ago
    I think the reason it gets a low amount of visitors is because it redirects to another website so if someone bookmarks the website, they aren't bookmarking the greetings.com domain. So those 8,100 US visitors a month are probably all new visitors. It sure doesn't hurt Hallmark to get new visitors that way.
  - krav 18y ago
    Looks like Hallmark owns it now. He must have sold it to them for a tidy profit: Whois Record Registrant: Hallmark Licensing Inc. Hallmark Domain Administration 2440 Pershing Rd. MD 339 Kansas City, MO 64108
    - rjprins 18y ago
      No, Ham grabbed "Greeting.com" not "Greetings.com".
- alecco 18y ago
  DNS was an elegant idea from more civilized times. Domain squatting should be punished in some way.
babyshake 18y ago
This needs to be approached at the browser level. It's not unfair for a browser to automatically redirect you if you accidently type .cm, or even to ask you if you really want to go to www.weddingshoes.com, since it's a spam site. Of course, this benefits Google. But at least for the .cm loophole, it's a no brainer.
- tlrobinson 18y ago
  Or use OpenDNS: http://www.opendns.com/support/article/5 http://www.opendns.com/support/article/5 They're rather vocal about this hack: http://blog.opendns.com/category/cctlds/ http://blog.opendns.com/category/cctlds/
andrewljohnson 18y ago
Anytime you hear some hack start babbling about some semantic nonsense search engine that will beat Google, you know the guy is a moron.
- krav 18y ago
  That's when you know the guy is gonna lose money. Stick with what you know.
parenthesis 18y ago
With google and bookmarks, are domain names really that important? A lot of sites I visit regularly, I'm not even sure what the name is exactly, which doesn't matter, since I have them bookmarked, or I can just feel lucky on google.
PonyGumbo 18y ago
On a related note, can anyone recommend a good registrar with a decent API? I'd like to offer domain registration as an add-on to my customers. I'm almost ready to go with OpenSRS, but I thought I'd ask the HN community first.
alecco 18y ago
Very old article glorifying domain squatting. Flagged.
- krav 18y ago
  I disagree. It's valuable for hackers to see where money's being made on the web. Just 'cause the article is a couple years old doesn't mean that the practice still isn't happening.
  - alecco 18y ago
    > I disagree. It's valuable for hackers to see where money's being made on the web. I know many (probably most) hackers figured this out early on. > Just 'cause the article is a couple years old doesn't mean that the practice still isn't happening. I didn't say that. Of course it's happening. We're reminded of this mess every time we need to register a domain. In my case, a domain squatter registered the domain with my name and lastname dot com and had it in ransom-style for years asking 4 digit numbers to transfer it. Network Solutions lives off this scammers and didn't even bother to help. Luckily I got one of the more tame scammers and he didn't put an offensive page. After enduring this for 8 years they let it go and I could register. It would be good if the big names stop linking and buying domains from this scum. It would be better if the domain name system is redesigned to prevent this behavior.
tk999 18y ago
on a side note. where is the best price for domain renew? I have about 50 domains need to renew. Gogaddy is about 9$ per renew.

karl11 18y ago

Why isn't this illegal, and why does Yahoo serve ads to this clown?

krav 18y ago
The answer, unfortunately, is simple. Yahoo and Google make a lot of money from these practices. They've enabled all this to happen. Do no evil, eh?

catone 18y ago

It should probably be noted that this article is from June 2007.

ctingom 18y ago

I don't know about you, but I always kick myself for missing the gold rush to buy hot domain names. It is so obvious in retrospect.

allenbrunson 18y ago
yeah. i could have registered "sex.com" for FREE at the right moment in time, and i would be set for life.
nikblack 18y ago
how about instead of thinking about all the things you have already missed, think about what you could be missing right now. there is always a new opportunity - better to take part in them than to read about them in retrospect.
daleharvey 18y ago
I dont, I like to spend my time actually creating wealth and helping people. not taking advantage of a system that was just too well meaning from the start to try and screw people out of a few million. how nice would it be if the domain hoarders werent around now. "this is why we cant have nice things"
axod 18y ago
I'd much rather be known for doing something vaguely worthwhile, than being the guy who grabbed all the domains. Grabbing domains, not using them, and trying to sell them is pretty much blackmail. It's certainly not a nice way to behave IMHO. The issue though is that domain names are pretty much free to register, but obviously have a far higher value to some people - a loophole that people exploit to make a quick buck. The other funny disconnect is how little traffic some "premium" domains get. >> "Greetings.com, but Ham grabs it anyway, for $350,000." Quantcast says it gets 8,100 US visitors a month.
- omouse 18y ago
  I think the reason it gets a low amount of visitors is because it redirects to another website so if someone bookmarks the website, they aren't bookmarking the greetings.com domain. So those 8,100 US visitors a month are probably all new visitors. It sure doesn't hurt Hallmark to get new visitors that way.
- krav 18y ago
  Looks like Hallmark owns it now. He must have sold it to them for a tidy profit: Whois Record Registrant: Hallmark Licensing Inc. Hallmark Domain Administration 2440 Pershing Rd. MD 339 Kansas City, MO 64108
  - rjprins 18y ago
    No, Ham grabbed "Greeting.com" not "Greetings.com".
alecco 18y ago
DNS was an elegant idea from more civilized times. Domain squatting should be punished in some way.

babyshake 18y ago

This needs to be approached at the browser level. It's not unfair for a browser to automatically redirect you if you accidently type .cm, or even to ask you if you really want to go to www.weddingshoes.com, since it's a spam site. Of course, this benefits Google. But at least for the .cm loophole, it's a no brainer.

tlrobinson 18y ago
Or use OpenDNS: http://www.opendns.com/support/article/5 http://www.opendns.com/support/article/5 They're rather vocal about this hack: http://blog.opendns.com/category/cctlds/ http://blog.opendns.com/category/cctlds/

andrewljohnson 18y ago

Anytime you hear some hack start babbling about some semantic nonsense search engine that will beat Google, you know the guy is a moron.

krav 18y ago
That's when you know the guy is gonna lose money. Stick with what you know.

parenthesis 18y ago

With google and bookmarks, are domain names really that important? A lot of sites I visit regularly, I'm not even sure what the name is exactly, which doesn't matter, since I have them bookmarked, or I can just feel lucky on google.

PonyGumbo 18y ago

On a related note, can anyone recommend a good registrar with a decent API? I'd like to offer domain registration as an add-on to my customers. I'm almost ready to go with OpenSRS, but I thought I'd ask the HN community first.

alecco 18y ago

Very old article glorifying domain squatting. Flagged.

krav 18y ago
I disagree. It's valuable for hackers to see where money's being made on the web. Just 'cause the article is a couple years old doesn't mean that the practice still isn't happening.
- alecco 18y ago
  > I disagree. It's valuable for hackers to see where money's being made on the web. I know many (probably most) hackers figured this out early on. > Just 'cause the article is a couple years old doesn't mean that the practice still isn't happening. I didn't say that. Of course it's happening. We're reminded of this mess every time we need to register a domain. In my case, a domain squatter registered the domain with my name and lastname dot com and had it in ransom-style for years asking 4 digit numbers to transfer it. Network Solutions lives off this scammers and didn't even bother to help. Luckily I got one of the more tame scammers and he didn't put an offensive page. After enduring this for 8 years they let it go and I could register. It would be good if the big names stop linking and buying domains from this scum. It would be better if the domain name system is redesigned to prevent this behavior.

tk999 18y ago

on a side note. where is the best price for domain renew? I have about 50 domains need to renew. Gogaddy is about 9$ per renew.