So I had a personal website at myname.com that I ran from 2002-2006ish. I did not renew the domain and am looking at putting something online again. Well, I go to the URL for shits and giggles and some spam master has a links page parked on it! WTF is this shit?! So I exchanged a couple emails with the domain name broker for the site and he says the reserve for the name is $700!!! I offered him $1 and told him to go **** himself. Is this extortion? What kind of rights to I have to a domain name that is clearly a reference to me? I looked up the stats and it gets zero hits per month, what a douchebag. My guess is he had some bot come along and scoop up domains coming off lease that had some traffic (my peak traffic was ~200 hits a month, peanuts). I can always use another domain name, but this d-bag has me fired up. What scavengers there are in this world.

 

probably nothing you can do.
it'll cost you more in term of lawyers fee, or your time if you're so inclined.

 

^ I have to agree, not worth the time or trouble.

 

Not worth it. Perhaps he will let it lapse after this year too.

 

^ Probably not now after I inquired about it If the law is on my side and I come strong with some statues, maybe then? I just don't like the idea of someone associating things with my name without my say.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersqua..._Protection_Act

Good luck! Too bad you aren't famous.

 

Nothing you can do as long as he pays the fee and provides contact info.

The company I work for left two possible site names out when they were buying domains, and now someone else has them. So far they can't get in touch with the owner, and may end up getting them just for that reason. If they can find the owner, they're willing to pay $1000 per domain to get them back.

 

Bullshit, I'm tinkfist!

 

An auxiliary domain name from our company expired and was scooped up. I exchanged emails and received notice that the cost would be around $10k to get it back. Because it was actually our company's registered business name the squatter was forced to give it back or face legal proceedings. Almost nobody accesses us through that name but it was ours and is our name and shouldn't belong to someone else.

 

Talk a to lawyer, but I think if you can prove that you've used the name in the past (not sure if it has to be for business reasons) you may have a copyright on the name. If the other party uses that name for a website it would be copyright infringement. Again, I'm not an attorney, and I haven't stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.