This page exists solely for those people who look up www.domain.tld to see if it's being used. Everything below applies only to the dozen or so people every week who would otherwise send me email informing me that the domain isn't being used and request that I turn it over to them. If you're not one of these people, feel free to ignore the rest of this since you're not one of the people it's written for.

If you're looking at this page, the chances are that you are wondering if the domain is being used. This page covers a handful of domains that do not have web pages but are being used for other purposes. What is written here applies to all of them. However, not all of them are mine, I merely make sure everything works for the people who are using them.

I receive way too many requests for a domain from people who inform me that I'm not using the domain. If the domain weren't being used, no one would pay the yearly fee to Internic to keep it. Since someone feels that keeping the domain is worth the $35/year that it costs, I can assure you that it is in fact being used for something. Below, I have listed a few things that people have done in the past and would like to prevent you from falling into these traps:


Problem: Assuming a domain isn't being used because it doesn't have a web site.

Solution: Go look for some information on the history of the internet. Specifically, look for when it started and when web sites started to exist, then look for what people did for the 30 years in between.


Problem: Calling on the phone, especially leaving messages that presume the person you're trying to contact believes they should return a long distance call or play phone tag with someone who wants to ask for something that wasn't offerred.

Solution: Send email to one or more of the contacts listed for the domain. Most people will respond to polite email.


Problem: Stating that the domain name belongs to you because of a trademark on a standard english word in an unrelated field of trade. Also, to be a big bully, threaten legal action if the person does not promptly comply with your terrorist demands.

Solution: Kill yourself. This happens all the time and happened to me about a year ago. This company felt so interested in the domain that they wanted to be rude about it. If they came to me and said "Hey, we're interested in this domain, how about $1000?" I would have said "That's barely worth the time it would take to reconfigure my machines and inform people to stop using the 6 year old email address, but for $2000, it's yours." However, since they acted rudely and insensitively, I wouldn't accept less than $10,000 from them. They backed down real quick when I explained my position and my intent to walk away with my domain and their money if they wanted to take it to court.


tips:
If someone has a domain, they probably are receiving email at that domain and you need to keep in mind the reconfiguration of the machines that manage the domain as well as telling people to switch email addresses and printing new stationary and business cards to reflect the change. This isn't a great deal of work, but consider that you're imposing on someone's time and resources if they accept your offer, so $100 is not reasonable.

If you wish to make an offer for a domain, make it. The reason I want to stress this is that I'm not offerring any domain for sale, and if someone expresses an interest, I have to evaluate if they're more serious about obtaining it than I am in keeping it. This includes deciding whether or not to forward the request to the person who would make the decision in the case of a domain that doesn't belong to me. If you want to offer less than $1000 for a domain, I decline the offer in advance.

comments:
This is the miscellaneous babbling I thought of adding after the fact, feel free to ignore it.
Since I've put this page up, it's decreased greatly the number of emails I reveive telling me I'm not using the domain, so it's served that purpose. Also, I've gotten a few emails from people who I presume are in a similar position saying they can totally relate to the lawyer letters. Unfortunately, I also get email from people who tell me I'm wasting a perfectly good domain name or that I'm a moron for writing any of this. I've tried to be civil about something that I find annoying because I either have to respond to every single email I get asking about a domain or I end up with people trying to change the registration information to hijack it for themselves. If you'd like to make any positive suggestions, feel free. However, "you're a moron" doesn't really address a problem that can be solved, after all, that would be a genetic deficiency, wouldnt it? =) I got one comment effectively saying that paying $35/year for the domain doesn't entitle me to post this gibberish. To the contrary, I can post this gibberish to the net for free in a number of places, that's the nice thing about the net - anyone can say anything they want. The other nice thing about it is that if you see something you don't like, you can go to another site. If you can't tell, there's some tongue in cheek humor in here, if you're taking offense from it, keep in mind that the offense was not offerred for you to take. Some people take offense at the "Solution: Kill yourself." part above. While being mostly added for humorous effect, and to stress how wrong the idea of threatening people to get your way is, I really believe it's the only solution for people who use threats as their first means of contact. Think about it, which would you respond to in a more pleasant way, "please" or "or I'll hunt you down and kill you."