Reading the story, seems the people at The Economist are not exactly er….economists.
Man identifies a resource & spends his own time, trouble & money to secure & maintain it. There’s a perfectly respectable market in domain names. So The Economist offers a market rate? Like hell it does, it takes the guy to court in an attempt to deprive him of his property.
err, if you have a choice of paying a hell of a lot of money for something and legally getting it for free, isn’t it economically rational to pick the latter?
[note that the *only* grounds for refusing the transfer was that the Economist couldn’t *prove* the chap in question hadn’t heard of them in 1995 – the panel accepted that the chap had no right to the domain and that his subsequent actions were in bad faith]
gene berman
I learned a lesson of sorts about the business of domain names just about 3 years ago.
I’d determined to register several names I’d thunk up–about 8 or 9 or so, total–having to do with a couple different projects (business ideas) of interest to me.
I went to one of the sites at which you can register such names and check on whether they’re “taken.”
Out of the lot, one was already registered; the rest were available. But I yet tarried–didn’t take any further action. When I came back some days later to actually go through the rest of the process, every one of my “creations” had been taken.
Reading the story, seems the people at The Economist are not exactly er….economists.
Man identifies a resource & spends his own time, trouble & money to secure & maintain it. There’s a perfectly respectable market in domain names. So The Economist offers a market rate? Like hell it does, it takes the guy to court in an attempt to deprive him of his property.
err, if you have a choice of paying a hell of a lot of money for something and legally getting it for free, isn’t it economically rational to pick the latter?
[note that the *only* grounds for refusing the transfer was that the Economist couldn’t *prove* the chap in question hadn’t heard of them in 1995 – the panel accepted that the chap had no right to the domain and that his subsequent actions were in bad faith]
I learned a lesson of sorts about the business of domain names just about 3 years ago.
I’d determined to register several names I’d thunk up–about 8 or 9 or so, total–having to do with a couple different projects (business ideas) of interest to me.
I went to one of the sites at which you can register such names and check on whether they’re “taken.”
Out of the lot, one was already registered; the rest were available. But I yet tarried–didn’t take any further action. When I came back some days later to actually go through the rest of the process, every one of my “creations” had been taken.
Just a few words to the wise.