Gave an old friend a lift this evening (I am in London for a flying visit).
He was a well-known sixties photographer and leading animator of what was then called the underground. Started a newspaper and a famous nightclub. Now in somewhat ill health with Parkinson's but still functioning. And a website is a useful thing for an old photographer, still doing a bit of hustling, to have. But he appear to have lost it, as follows:
The Belgian webserver sent the bill to the wrong address, so it wasn't paid. The server then suspended the website, which vanished. They were contacted, not without difficulty, and were not especially helpful, certainly not apologetic. However they said the site would be restored on a certain date. Apparently it was, but at one minute past midnight - one minute into that date - it was sold to a German company that buys and hoards webnames. Obviously the Belgian outfit are carphounds. Apparently they have a bad reputation.
It's inconvenient and upsetting to my poor old buddy. But the thing that puzzles me is what value these names could possibly have. Sounds like collecting gravel to me. Where's the profit?
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I would think they may be working on the same principal as cherished registration plate companies, snaffle,store, sell at huge profit when somebod wants it!
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So my old buddy could get it back by buying it from these Germans?
It would be interesting to know how much they would want. They won't be able to get much out of him. He's middling broke. Anyway I think he'd be so offended by the very idea that he wouldn't do it.
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It happened to a friend of mine where a fairly memorable domain name (although a niche business) was grabbed (by a German Company), after the renewal emails went into his spam filter. They required a ransom fee IIRC of about 200€, but were not easy to contact. The new registration was for only 12 months and at the end of the period I grabbed it back. The highjackers obviously thought that it was not worth fighting for or paying any additional fees?
Bit like Poland in 1939? :)
Last edited by: pmh on Sat 16 Jul 11 at 07:51
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Standard practice I think. I failed to renew my domain and within hours it was "owned" by someone else. ISTR you can get a domain name and pay nothing for a few days. So what I think happens (there is a name for it) is that something automatically captures expired domain names. They then measure the traffic (automatically) and if there seems to be a lot they will keep it and try to resell it back to the original owner.
In my case it passed through many hands (and countries) but one day a month or so later it was suddenly free and I recaptured it.
I now have my domains on automatic renewal...
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Automatic renewal is the best solution. You have to keep an eye on things like this though.
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I first registered quite a few domain names in the early 90s, before people knew what they would be worth. Made a couple of grand in about 5 years, before a proper disputes procedure came into effect that made it tricky.
At one time I owned a couple of towns and a county!
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Website names as a commodity... a new one on me - devonite
