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July 19, 2004
Damn squatters
Been trying to come up with a new domain name as "niherlas", while unique, is neither memorable nor easy to spell. While I have a default acronym-based choice, I'm still trying to come up with something catchy. Unfortunately, my good ideas have all been taken.
I don't mind so much when my idea for a domain name is taken by an active site. Someone else is making use of it - good for them! But I'm getting tired of finding good domains that lead to generic search engines or solicitations to "buy this domain!" for several hundred - or even thousand - dollars.
It's not unlike modern intellectual property laws, when you think about it. A lot of modern patent development today seems to revolve around coming up with ideas that vague enough to apply in broad situations but specific enough to be patentable. Said ideas are patented and sold to a patent "warehouse" which does... nothing. Nothing that is, except monitor industry to see if someone else starts to actually do something that might fall under the held patent. Then they threaten a lawsuit unless licensing fees are paid - even though the patent holder has never even tried to make a product with their patent. But I digress.
Needless to say, my general philosophy is "use it or lose it" - and hosting a page that simply advertises an outrageous sale price doesn't fall under "use" as far as I'm concerned.
Damned squatters.
Posted by jim at July 19, 2004 11:23 AM
Comments
I put a comment on your other blog, but it looks like you update this one more regularly. Did you used to be on Aether, about a million years ago?
Posted by: Amy S at July 19, 2004 12:20 PM
UGH! I know what you mean about squatters!! I feel lucky that I even got the domain I have now.
Then there's my grandpa's domain who I set everything up for him and then they did not renew it and lost it and now a stupid search engine owns it and just now renewed it for yet another year! Arg. I guess we'll never get it back. And the really stupid thing is, it is specific to his business, and for crying out loud, how much traffic can it drum up anyway??
Posted by: Valerie at July 21, 2004 03:05 PM