
Why Tesla Motors Finally Acquired Tesla.com - ca98am79
https://namecorp.com/why-tesla-motors-finally-acquired-tesla-com/
======
nxzero
Given there's no information on why Telsa Motors bought the domain, seems like
click-bait to me.

~~~
mikeash
There is a little:

"At some point it was inevitable that Tesla would do more than just offer cars
and the TeslaMotors.com domain wasn’t representative of this growth."

But yes, this is pretty obvious, and could fit in a tweet instead of a blog
post.

~~~
elbigbad
And of course this is just the opinion of the author, so not really even
information on the domain name purchase.

~~~
mikeash
It seems like a reasonable inference. They introduced their energy storage
products, then a few months later acquired the domain without "motors" in it.
But they could do a better job of distinguishing between the facts and the
inference.

------
nakedrobot2
Domain names are a scam, and it has persisted for so long that it seems
everyone has forgotten what a scam it all is. And now it's really too late.

If domain names cost $1000 each, we wouldn't have squatters at all. It is
really a shame to find a great domain name that is just sitting unused.

ICANN's creation of hundreds more TLD's is just a further money grab in this
whole thing. But of course, the .com domain is and will probably always rule.

~~~
makecheck
Especially since Internet domain names were never set up to be consistent with
trademark law (or heck, even the Yellow Pages), as they probably should have
been. “Domain” is a terrible name in the sense that it actually does a pretty
bad job of splitting businesses into their true domains.

Take moving companies. We have “Apple” and “United” in that market, and those
names are clear enough as long as the grouping is something like “moving
companies”. They coexist in markets where Apple computers and United Airlines
are well known. In the old days, these would have had two different mentions
in the Yellow Pages. Yet, can there reasonably be a “moving.apple” and
“moving.united” alongside “computers.apple” and “airlines.united”? No, these
well-established _four_ companies have to compete for _two_ logical domains,
because consumers only seem to care about ".com". Companies fight over domain
names that they shouldn’t _need_ to care about, and artificial “value” is
attributed to these names.

~~~
unethical_ban
That's what gTLDs should do going forward, even if it will be hard to change
the mindset of people.

~~~
icebraining
Not really, because you can still have two companies with the same mark in the
same market - as long as they're in different countries. To match trademarks,
we'd need to use ccTLDs instead of gTLDs.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
That doesn't actually seem like a problem though. What's wrong with
united.air.us and lloyds.bank.uk?

Which actually makes the squatting problem much _better_ because to squat on
"foo" you need foo.air.us, foo.bank.us, foo.cars.us, foo.air.uk, foo.bank.uk,
foo.cars.uk, foo.air.ca, foo.bank.ca...

~~~
icebraining
_What 's wrong with united.air.us and lloyds.bank.uk?_

Nothing, but those aren't the gTLDs that unethical_ban was talking about.

------
dkyc
_" Uber is reported to have traded 1% of company stock to acquire Uber.com."_

Wow, if that's true, that has to be the deal of the century.

~~~
frankdenbow
... but Universal Music sold their shares early
[http://fortune.com/2014/06/04/universal-music-group-sold-
ube...](http://fortune.com/2014/06/04/universal-music-group-sold-uber-domain/)
_facepalm_

~~~
icebraining
Why the facepalm? Selling shares is no different than not buying them. If they
weren't investing in tech startups, they shouldn't start doing so just because
the shares fell on their lap.

Sure, in this particular case they would have made money, but that's with the
benefit of hindsight. What if the domain buyer had been Spoonrocket instead?

------
thecourier
All the info in the article, plus Elon is deeply in love with domain names.
just remember x.com was bought for USD 1 million and Elon didn't want to lose
the money (even when the brand was failing)
[https://books.google.com.do/books?id=Jtr3ThHeTEMC&pg=PA130&l...](https://books.google.com.do/books?id=Jtr3ThHeTEMC&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=paypal+buy+x.com+domain&source=bl&ots=sngduadDWz&sig=rTNCcTyN-
DA4cxvFC9CPzla5pPs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0z7m888fLAhVJpR4KHcWRCaEQ6AEIZDAG#v=onepage&q=paypal%20buy%20x.com%20domain&f=false)

------
ctdonath
I recall from the early days of domain names: the site ati.com had a front-
page comment a la "there are 147 companies calling themselves ATI and
demanding their right to this website. No, we're not giving it up. Yes, you'll
take legal action against us - get in line." (And no, it wasn't the big video-
card company, though they ended up with it eventually.)

------
willvarfar
The article has no details, and just seems to be trying to stoke up prices for
domain squatters.

~~~
maratd
How are you a domain squatter if you owned the domain before the company
existed?

~~~
makomk
I had a look in the Internet Archive and for the entire decade that tesla.com
was registered, it was a gandi.net domain parking page. Looks like a domain
squatter to me.

~~~
cylinder
That's not what squatting is. Are you implying that someone who buys a vacant
piece of land and leaves it undeveloped is a squatter?

------
yitchelle
The article mentioned in the post about mcdonalds.com is very interesting,
especially as it is the start of the domain name "gold mine" prospecting.

[https://namecorp.com/billions-registered/](https://namecorp.com/billions-
registered/)

------
hotcool
_Patrick Swayze said it best in Dirty Dancing: “Nobody puts Baby in the
corner.” Well, the wrong domain can put you in a corner. The right domain can
open the world._

I had no idea Patrick Swayze was such an authority on domain names and
branding. Golden line though.

------
whack
It sounds pretty ridiculous that someone can make a windfall, just because
they happened to buy the tesla.com domain name 20 years ago. But
comparatively, it's not really any more ridiculous than someone buying a plot
of land on the cheap, later finding a huge oil reserve underneath it, and
selling it for tens/hundreds of millions of dollars.

I'm going to posit that domain names are actually going to be less valuable
10/20 years from now, compared to now. When you think about it, domain names
are really a crude bridge that connect users to the website that they really
want to go to. Search engines like Google are already undercutting the need
for this bridge. Anyone who wants to go to Tesla's website simply needs to
google for Tesla, or Tesla car, and they can find the site they are looking
for almost immediately. I posit that this trend is going to accelerate in the
future, until we get to a point where pretty domain names are about as
valuable as pretty IP addresses: A novelty item, but one that most users don't
actually interact with directly or care about.

~~~
mxuribe
I agree that domain names might be less valuable in the future, but only
because there will be lots more choice instead of just .com...That is, more
people will assume the web is full of more than just .com domains, and will
take other TLDs more seriously. (At least I hope.)

Also, if more and more users rely _ONLY_ on search engines rather than domains
to arrive at a website, that is essentially the definition of a walled
garden...because if i'm a small - even a somewhat medium - business with a
website, I now have to spend even more effort than before on SEO, just so when
searchers type in my business name it won't get confused in search results
with other similarly named companies, or push me down on a search results
page...And then there's the whole concept of being at the whim of a search
engine's policy: if i piss off a search engine and they prevent me from
showing up in results, my business almost entirely "disappears from the (silo)
web"...No offense, but i hope your prediction does not come true. ;-)

------
joeblau
The score at the bottom of the article is hilarious. I used to own a Maxima
and I would always go to Nissan.com only to find a semi-funciotnal "computer"
repair shop. It was extremely frustrating, but the sites main goal right now
is is to bring light to the lawsuit that the owner is going against. I don't
even know if anyone even makes any transactions on Nissan.com.

~~~
zeveb
I could swear that I remember a time when nissan.com had more stuff (ah, here
we go:
[https://web.archive.org/web/19961221205004/http://www.nissan...](https://web.archive.org/web/19961221205004/http://www.nissan.com/)).
He's not a domain squatter; he owns a legitimate business and got nissan.com
fair and square. I imagine that at this point he's been driven half-mad by
Nissan Motor Company's legal harassment.

I really, _really_ hope that a judge delivers the car company the smackdown it
so richly deserves.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Why not just sell them the domain? Is the car company not interested in simply
paying him a couple million for it? Or is he demanding something ridiculous
like $50 million? It would be interesting to know the inside scoop.

~~~
bradbatt
I wonder if they ever tried to buy it, or if they were straight to threatening
him with legal action.

------
erickhill
I imagine Tesla the 80's rock band would have liked the Tesla.com domain back
before the car company even existed. Instead they got Teslatheband.com

------
blisterpeanuts
Since the owner of Nissan.com identifies himself as "Nissan Computer Corp." in
his contact page, why not disambiguate his site with a more informative domain
name? NissanComputer.com, NissanComputerCorp.com, and
NissanComputerCorporation.com are all available.

Having the anti-Nissan Motors banner on the home page seems somewhat petty and
unprofessional. There must be thousands of people hitting his page every week,
maybe clicking on the mail form and sending in questions about cars.

Has he not offered to sell the domain for a million or two? That's what I'd
do. Surely Nissan Motor Corp. has spent more on legal fees than that, and
undoubtedly he's spent a pretty penny as well.

~~~
bdcravens
It wasn't always that way. Over the years, the owner has been essentially
bullied by Nissan Motors.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
I understand, but why not just offer the domain for a million or two? Maybe
it's an emotional thing, but again, I'd rather have the money myself. Or maybe
the guy's independently wealthy?

~~~
Anechoic
_I understand, but why not just offer the domain for a million or two?_

He did [0], Nissan Motors didn't want to pay.

[0] [http://nowiknow.com/why-you-cant-buy-a-car-on-nissan-
com/](http://nowiknow.com/why-you-cant-buy-a-car-on-nissan-com/)

