We write so many stories about the evils of CyberSquatiing, and once in a while story comes out, that shows why so many people do it.
George Huger, lead Web developer for Illuminati Karate is quoted as saying:
“It worked out very well”
Mark Mills, owner of Yuma Solutions, could not be reached for comment.
The Tallahassee, Fla.-based Yuma Solutions has a history with the Bush family, hosting Web sites for Mr. Bush’s 2000 campaign and for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s 1998 and 2002 campaigns. The company also sold $1.25 million in computer equipment, support and Web services to John McCain’s presidential campaign this year.
Records indicate that in March 2007, the George W. Bush Library Foundation, using Yuma Solutions as its contractor, bought the domain name from a private person for $3,000. Officials apparently overlooked the fact that the registration was set to expire within a few months.
Mr. Huger was trolling through a public list of names that were about to expire and saw the potential in the library name. He grabbed it.
Months later, in March 2008, Mr. Huger said he’d gotten some offers on it, but he declined to detail what they were or who was trying to buy it.
After The Dallas Morning News reported that the library had lost the domain, Mr. Mills contacted Illuminati Karate and asked to buy it back, Mr. Huger said.
At the time, a spokesman for the library foundation said officials were unaware that the name had been lost until a reporter contacted them about it.
“When the article came out, I think they wanted it back pretty badly,” said Mr. Huger this week.
Yuma finally reached a deal to buy the Web address back for $35,000, which the company, not the library foundation, apparently paid, Mr. Huger said.
Mark Langdale, president of the George W. Bush Library Foundation, said Tuesday that he didn’t know about the Web site being lost and recovered. But, he said, he would know if the library had been stuck with a surprise $35,000 expenditure.
The site changed hands on April 17 and won’t expire until 2013.
It seems that the library itself could have gotten the domain back using a WIPO action, but did not attempt one. It does not appear that the developer of the site even had an attorney threaten any action against the NC company.
This seems like a rare case, where an embarrassed developer, paid the money out of their own pocket, trying to get the domain back without even letting their client even know that the domain expired and was lost.
Several lessons here.
As we have discussed before, for all you non-domainers out there, don’t let your hosting or development company put their contact information on your domain. Your playing with fire. It’s your property. You put your name and contact info on it. Your wouldn’t let a business associate put his name on the title to you house, would you?
Second, if you operate a web development company, or hosting company, you better know the law regarding the business your in, and you inform your client’s as to ability to enforce their legal rights.
Paying off in this situation, gives all domainers a further black eye, and brings into the space a whole new bunch of folk, seeking to turn their $10 into $35K, by squatting on someone else’s intellectual property.
As for the NC Company who walked away with the cash, you got lucky.
This time.
There was mo need to mention the company had ties to the Bush family… The chain of events made that obvious :p
WOW!
How can someone when buying a domain at $3K not make sure that they check the domain to see when it expires!
Still cant believe $35K for this name.
Regards,
Robbie
Agree Tim. I wonder when big companies are going to get smart and at least make domainers do their homework, rather than screaming “I’m rich and can afford to pay”. Ah well, no complaints for the seller I’m sure 🙂
Right you are about what to do to protect your domains … unfortunately, the millions who make these mistakes and should get this message mostly likely won’t.
George Bush trickle down dumbness, plain and simple.
Read an article the other day about Obama and his blackberry. They posted George Bush’s old email address. It was an AOL email address.
I rest my case.
Like paying off the first Somali pirate, this kind of negative reinforcement will increase nefarious activities further.
the funny thing is that all domainers are squatters, you don’t ave to be infringing on any trademarks whatever to qualify as a squatter, you just have to squat (sit) on a bunch of domains and that’s the definition and that’s what domainers do.
It’s time to be less hypocritical, and accept the reality.
luckily domainers are not bottomfeeders completely on the bottom of the food chain, since squatters that do infringe on TMs rank even lower. It feels good knowing that there is another entity that ranks lower.
Namer
That may be your definition but it definitely isn’t the legal definition of what is a cybersquatter.
Funny, I think you wouldn’t call Donald Trump a land squatter because he owns a lot of vacant land.
AFAIK, cybersquatting isn’t even legally defined…yet. But people pretty much got an idea what constitutes it.
Lucky bastard, this time. Got an early Christmas bonus. 🙂
This racket has been around just about since the advent of domain registration. I wish that I had bought and sat on a few myself.
What business is ethical? Why don’t you talk about the corporations that are robbing the American people every day?
I’m for freedom of the internet. And I think if you register a domain, you should be able to keep it unless it is a trademark. I don’t consider names trademarks. Furthermore, If you owned JohnSmith.com and a movie producer wanted to buy it off of you for 1 million for up and comping movie – (and lets say your name was John Smith).
Would that movie producer not own the legal rights to the domain even though his name isn’t John Smith? So then another John Smith could goto Icann court and take it off of him? But wait, since the name became so valuable another John Smith claims he wants it. Who gets it? The point is, unless you register Kmart.com that is tradmarked, I dont think anyone should have the right to take the domain. Pick on another industry.
Some criminals get rewarded as it is the case with that domain name.
Greetings from Croatia – Velika Gorica