First names in .com are some of the more valuable virtual real estate out there online, Susan.com sold for $34,000 at the 2015 NamesCon auction. Justin showed the world his life on Justin.tv. Some use modified or less popular versions of a first name to brand their business, Lynda.com is one popular example.
Mike stumbled upon Gail.com and the FAQ on the site is rather interesting, the domain was a gift from a husband to a wife back in 1996 when most did not even understand domain names.
Hello and welcome to the gail.com FAQ.
Q: Why isn’t there any content here?
A: All personal web content is hidden on back pages to conserve bandwidth.
Q: Interested in selling gail.com?
A: Sorry, no.
Q: How did you manage to get gail.com?
A: My husband registered it as a birthday gift back in 1996.
Q: How many times a day is this page visited?
A: In 2014 this page received 1,829,385 hits, which is an average of 5,012 per day. Eighty-five percent of those hits were from unique IP addresses. Occasionally, we get Redditted and get several tens of thousands of visitors over a day or so.
Q: I think you’re infringing on my trademark…
A: You can’t have an exclusive trademark on a common word or name. My husband and I successfully defended ourselves against an attempted domain coup d’état in 2006; see WIPO Case D2006-0655 for more information.
Q: Don’t you know that you could throw some ads up and make money?
A: Yes, I know, thank you. For those who feel they need more advertising in their life, have a look at our nifty EFF ad below.
Thanks for visiting,
Gail (faq at gail period com)
I agree. I own Chirlane_com and have received several offers to buy it. And it’s not even a popular name, which makes it obvious that much more popular ones are very valuable.
Q: Interested in selling gail.com?
A: Sorry, no.
What a pity I was going to offer him a billion dollars for it
It certainly doesn’t hurt that the name is 1 letter away from gmail.com – I’m sure 90% of that traffic comes from people typing gmail too fast.
haha i always go to type gmail in and always get gail lol think its a pathetic brithday present u sit here buzzin cuz u got a veiwing when really pple press back straight away and re type they do read it cuz we all like to have a look at a load of shit haha think im gunna make a yapoo and c how many pple mis spell yahoo ha
definately gmail typo traffic or people looking for oprah’s friend Gayle
Agreed, if Gmail did not exist the name would be worth low $XX,XXX.
Wow thats superb. They might have done some Seo maybe.
Decision by sole panelist Christopher J. Pibus :
The Panel finds it unnecessary to provide any conclusions with respect to bad faith, in light of the ruling that the Respondent does possess a legitimate interest in the domain name. Although arguable, the Panel declines to find that the Complainant used the Policy in bad faith to attempt to deprive the Respondent from using his domain name. The Panel is satisfied that the Complainant was attempting to assert its trademark rights, without bad faith, as it is entitled to do.
According to the respondent, the Complainant offered no evidence that the disputed domain name is being used in bad faith.
The Complainant used legal counsel (Edmundo Brunner Propriedade Intelectual) and would have known that to succeed they had to prove all three prongs of the UDRP (including proof that the respondent was using the domain name in bad faith).
So no reverse domain name hijacking decision then because “complainant thought they had a chance”.
Yes, hard to believe there would be that much interest in typing in “gail.com,” so I’m inclined to believe the theory about gmail typo traffic is correct. Then again, I could be wrong.