Ok I'm feeling that this is going to be one of those long threads, but I'll express my feelings too on this subject.
Before I started writing, I happened to open a discussion with someone about typosquatting and how some domainers have strong opinions against it. I just finished this phrase and he gave me a surprised look and said: "And buying a name for $7 and selling it to someone for thousands is moral?"
Domaining in it's core has very little to differentiate it's self from squatting. The whole industry revolves around being quick enough to register a domain before someone who really needs it, and then exploiting the fact that someone might need it so much that he would pay an inflated fee of thousands of dollars for a virtual property that costs only $7.
This is what 98% in this forum do - resell names. Register them and sell them for 1000x of what they paid. Or, buy it, and then sell it for much more, again to a person who desperately needs it(and I mean desparately because otherwise he would not be paying thousands of dollars for it). If we exclude the true generics that have value in the traffic they bring and can justify their value in real world $, most of the people in this industry buy and sell domains that receive little or no traffic, based on their term potential and brandability.
We've seen Frank Schilling and before that we've seen Sedo(in the newsletters) give advice to buy Geo targetted names like chicagosurgeon.com, newyorklaywer.com, orlandoflorist.com etc, because in the future there will be high demand and can be resold for thousands. Let's taka look into the core of this practice.... So we buy names like orlandoflorist.com for example, and then squeeze out every little penny out of a florist who will need this it for his business. It can be a family business or whatever, but we don't care, if he doesnt meet our 4-5-figure expectations we just won't sell it to him. If he is desperate enough, he will give in. So we are practically holding something that we have no use for so that we can sell it to someone who's business depends on it. I ask you... Where are the ethics in that?
Or let's take another example, something that a lot of dropcatchers do. Someone forgets to renew his family business domain and loses his domain to a dropcatcher. One of us grabs his domain and when this poor guy contacts him, the domainer will sell it to him for thousands, making him a 1000% ROI in just a few days. Think about it and tell me that this is not taking advantage of that guys need in owning that name. And yet most of us never stop to consider the ethics of this practice and do it. Some even set a minimum, let's say $1000 for cases like this, otherwise they won't sell. So where are the ethics in that?
None of the above is moral, however it is a legal practice and when something is legal, people tend to take it as granted that it is also moral and never give it a second thought. Well the fact is, if you want to be like mother teresa you probably shouldn't be domaining because exploiting other people's needs is what domaining is about - admit it to yourself or not, it's a fact
I have NEVER ever seen anyone accuse someone in this forum of unethical practice for selling a name like orlandoflorist.com to an end user. On the contrary, we all congratulate that person for his achievement of finding an end user who needed it that bad, that paid a huge amount for it.
I was sitting at a cafe with some friends the other day and someone mentioned that he wanted to build a website for his business, and he was talking to me in desperation because someone has registered the domain he wanted a few days ago(it was probably just a coincidence) and he wanted x,xxx to for it. He told me that he thinks that all domainers are heartless scumbags that take advantage of people who want to build their business. And eventhough I know we are not scumbags(because I do consider myself and most people in this forum to be a good and caring persons), I do agree with him that basically, we make our living by taking advantage of people who need something that we have - and we sure do our best to take as much as we can from them and at the end of the day we even feel proud about it.
The point of my blurb is that whoever buys domains that he has no use for other than selling them for profit, must look at himself first of all and critisize his own actions before he goes out and criticize others. Let he who is without sin throw the first stone - I'm sure nobody in this forum will.
And about typosquatting, yes I do it and it partly pays for my studies. I see nothing wrong in owning a domain that receives traffic that would be otherwise lost. If the company wants it, they will contact me and I will give it to them, hassle free. One might argue that I should hand it over to them instead of waiting until they contact me first. But hey, I'm no mother Teresa and if they don't care enough to get the .net or the www version of their website why should I? (a note here: regardless, I have a very few names with potential TM issues)
And last but not least, Let me explain how grateful big corporations are when you register a typo just to help them.- Yes I did that and I regret it.
You all remember the .tv boom a short time ago, when Demand Media opened ME.TV to promote the video blogs and websites. The first day, the site got enormous traffic and alexa was showing that it would be the leader in movers and shakers. Once a domain gets into movers and shakers all typos are gone. So I thought to myself, this time I will do something good. I registered wwwme.tv and immediately redirected it to their website, following an email explaining that I am holding the domain for them and I want to give it to them, I made it obvious that I did not want to sell, and I mentioned that I do not even want the $30 reg fee I paid. Just plain simple - hand it over.
I received NO REPLY. I then sent another message pissed off for ignoring me. Again, they ignored me some more.
I think enough said, this post is already long enough - I'm just very upset by the way some people see things.
I also want to make this clear that I am not referring to DNQUEST in specific. I respect him and I was one of the people who voted for him to get an upgrade from DCG
