Domain "eater" Companies

[nightfox1405241487 0]

How can these companies exist? I have a friend who I provide computer services for and he wants to register a domain for his pizza shops which go under the brand of "Tasty Pizza of <location>" (there are currently 2 locations). Since I deal with all of his technology business transactions and he wanted the domain "tastypizza.com", so I inquired a quote from the company.

 

Guess the price!! $15? Nope... not even close. $20? REALLY COLD. In fact, you're in the serious negitives... hmm... how about $100? STILL WAY OFF! Try $15,900... yes, fifteen THOUSAND, nine-hundred dollars!!! These companies are seriously "eating" the net of usable domains and charging almost 3000% markup of a $9/year domain!

 

I could understand any price between $10 and $40... but almost $16,000 is through the roof!

 

I'm going to suggest to my friend that he register his trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and sue this company for trademark infringement. He's got the paperwork he's owned the business longer than that company stole the domain.... this is dumb... they should try to steal Microsoft.com before Microsoft has a chance to renew it and see what happens...

 

OK, I'm done ranting now.

 

[N]F

Edited February 21, 2007 by nightfox (see edit history)

[Markymark2 0]

Welcome to the crazy world of domain names!This has been around since the net started unfortunatly.I used to work for an ISP that did business DSL connections and webdesign and hosting.We had a lot of really slimy salesmen who got up to some mad tricks..for instance one customer who was a pain in the *bottom* for me (I was technical manager) because he was always asking for mroe than he  paid for technically..always calling up asking for more config on his site etc..eventually his account was about to run out so the salsemen got me to list reports from his databases of how much he was selling on his webshop..I didnt like the idea but eventually the sales director leaned on me to provide the figures..Basically the ppl I was working for regiastered and held all the records on the domain name the guy was using.Because he was making a lot of money and chewing our bandwidth (yes he was sold unlimited BW ;(( ) the sales team decided to make his account now 4000 a year from 250 a year. The guy ofc refused and said Im goign with another hoster..ofc he couldnt cos we still had his domain name..guess what? 10000 to repoint the domian name!!!Also the salesteam went and registered the .net and .co.uk etc of the daomain name in question so that he couldnt start again with a similar domain name ;(((Basically this company held this guy to ransom ;(( I was really not happy about the situation I can tell you!!Well soon after (for other reasons also) I left them and went to work at thier competetion )Soon to find they were up to the same tricks ;((Marky;)

[pyost 0]

Aah, this sure is a wide-spread problem, while at the same time a good way to make easy money. People often buy domains for a longer period, and then increase their price when someone really needs them. They have all the rights to do so, there is no law against this kind of action, but it is unfair. All the good domains are taken, and all you can see is This domain is for sale, while it could be used in a much better way.

 

I'm going to suggest to my friend that he register his trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and sue this company for trademark infringement.

Good idea, since this way he is bound to get the domain name. However, I am not really sure this guy could be sued - after all, he didn't break any law when he bought the domain name. Yes, he will probably be obliged to transfer it, but there probably won't be anything else.

 

Of course, you could always search for some alternatives, for example http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/. Unfortunately, com is already taken (what a surprise..), and it has a hyphen in it, which is not good practice, but it's better than nothing.

[Atomic0 0]

These days domain names get taken really quickly by internet companies. Most of these get domain search data off domain registrars and they register the domain with e.g. Verisign, which offers them 7 day money back for the domain. This way they can try to see if any of these domains earns them revenue from the ads displayed on the web pages. If they domains do not get any views, then they are usually returned to the registrar for their money back.

[vhortex 1]

you have been a victim of cyber squatting.. these are the scum of the internet, most start as a free domain registration which is padded with ads.. and when the domain hits a lot of traffic, this signals the cyber squat that the domain is hot and they will try to grab the domain for some fast $$$..i got my nickname cyber squat also for around 7 years, but who needs my domain name.. i can always have anyname i want.. i wont pay 67k for a domain name that will hold open source stuffs..

[Vue 0]

Hello!

 

That's sad. Very sad. They're very smart. And I think it's legal...somewhat. They could just say that they didn't know of your business beforehand. Extremely blunt, yes, but somewhat plausible.

 

You could attack them back by say, registering significantly longer "THEREALtasypizzaof<location>.com" and vice versa. I know a lot of companies that have had their domain name taken first and so added an extra word and became known from then on by their "suckier" Internet address.

 

If you added something like "THEREAL" to your address, then comments like "Why are these so similar?" or "Who's copying who?" are eliminated.

Edited April 7, 2007 by Vue (see edit history)

[threesix 0]

why don't you try something else like tasty-pizza?