Domain pirates

I think the term you're thinking of is Domain Squatters.. and yes, i TOTALLY agree with you.. they are all a bunch of bastards..

Not a whole lot you can do about it..

Can I buy it though?

You'd have to talk to the squatters and tell them you want to buy it. No doubt they'd ask a very large sum for it.. it sucks but there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Pretty much the only time people have won cases about this sort of thing is when a celebrity's name has been used as a domain.

Sirens of Titan - as in the Kurt Vonnegut novel?

cheers
sam.

The only chance you'll have of being able to get a domain name away from a squatter is if you can prove one of the following:

1.) It infringes on a trademark.
2.) It is intended to blatently mislead users into thinking they're on another site.

The third possibility, which hasn't really gotten enough court time to have a real decision, is if the site is intentionally guiding people to completely unrelated content based upon their naive searches. The most obvious example that I can think of would probably be the infamous whitehouse site (which is a porn site, don't say I didn't warn you).

Personally, I'm hoping that registrars adopt a stricter policy on this sort of thing (I believe NetSol has started requiring you to explain the purpose of your site when registering the domain). It's absurd that half of the best domains on the internet are nothing more than link farms. Blech.

Well that's just gay. Yes... it is in reference to the Vonnegut novel.

Darn it all. What is the point of those sites? Do they sell the domains? Or just keep them?

I'd have to pay like $10,000 for it, right? That's really annoying. Agh.

Quote:

Original post by Khaos Darn it all. What is the point of those sites? Do they sell the domains? Or just keep them?

Sell them of course. [xmascheer]

It's simple really, the name infringes on a trademark. Get the author to sue them and convince him to let you have the domain after.

Cool, Vonnegut is one of my favourite authors :-)

Good luck with the domain!

cheers
sam.

I hate these squatter guys. A lot of the time, they'll look for domain names and buy them as soon as they expire. I worked for a company that forgot to renew the domain name for one of their clients. Within 2 hours of it expiring the site was changed into a porn site, even though the domain itself had nothing to do with adult content. These squatter guys are just out to make a quick buck at someone else's expense or mistake [sad]

Quote:

Original post by evolutional I hate these squatter guys. A lot of the time, they'll look for domain names and buy them as soon as they expire. I worked for a company that forgot to renew the domain name for one of their clients. Within 2 hours of it expiring the site was changed into a porn site, even though the domain itself had nothing to do with adult content. These squatter guys are just out to make a quick buck at someone else's expense or mistake [sad]

That's life. There will always be someone trying to fuck you up :\

Meh, what is worse is individuals doing it. Some guy keeps renewing extrarius.com solely to sell it for a profit. He wants $100 and wont go lower. I offered to pay the expenses up to the point when I made the offer (which came to around $50 iirc) and he wouldn't accept. I don't understand how he intends to make a profit. It isn't like it is some popular word/phrase that all the large corporations want to own. AFAIK, I'm the only person that has ever inquired about it (which I think because I had to whois the domain to get his email at which point he directed me to a domain auction site where he'd set the min bid at $100).
I'd really love to have that domain, but there is no way I'm paying $100 for it ($50 was really a high offer because I was feeling generous at the time)

It should be made illegal to own a domain with the main intent of selling it or something like that.