

Kevin Ham, the $300 million master of Web domains (2007) - jasonlbaptiste
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050989/index.htm?postversion=2007052214

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PonyGumbo
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.

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ctingom
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.

~~~
axod
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.

~~~
krav
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
No, Ham grabbed "Greeting.com" not "Greetings.com".

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

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andrewljohnson
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
That's when you know the guy is gonna lose money. Stick with what you know.

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parenthesis
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.

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babyshake
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
Or use OpenDNS: <http://www.opendns.com/support/article/5>

They're rather vocal about this hack:
<http://blog.opendns.com/category/cctlds/>

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karl11
Why isn't this illegal, and why does Yahoo serve ads to this clown?

~~~
krav
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?

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tk999
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.

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alecco
Very old article glorifying domain squatting. Flagged.

~~~
krav
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

      > 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.

