photo credit: Ann Althouse

In a not-so-distant prior life, I went out and registered lots and lots of domain names. A few of the bunch were, of course, badly thought out. Not because they weren’t monetizable or anything, but precisely because they were a little too easily so. Say, maybe for instance, because they may have been skirting ever so slightly along the wrong side of the cutting edge of trademark infringement.

And until this week, they’ve remained in their marginally developed state as well as staying under the radar. But not this week: two separate companies’ legal departments have sent, I must say, very polite letters telling me to knock it off in not so many words. And so I have, redirecting both offending domains to the respective companies websites and offering to transfer their ownership. And preemptively killed off a couple more that I feel are a little too far over that line as well.

I wouldn’t call myself unwilling to push the envelope as far as this little side adventure of a business is concerned, but I do find it awfully uncomfortable receiving legal documents that I can’t legitimately argue against. When the risk far exceeds the reward (as it definitely did with the pittance I earned off these domains), it’s just stupid to play the game.

Luckily, I have another 70 or 80 trouble-free domains to play around with…

What the heck am I rambling about? Just my latest domains:

• Dreaming Vespa Dreams; after all, hasn’t everyone dreamt of wheeling around on a little European scooter, at least once? (In the immortal words of Eddie Izzard) ‘Ciao!’
• Not masculine enough for you? Well, just climb up into your Hunter Stand and get a little primal.
• But it sure can be cold out there this time of the year, so don’t forget to bring along a Cheap Generator to bring the heat (and the game) with you!

With each bit of success I’m adding another domain or two or three. I’ve recently decided that, at least for now, I will not take out any profit on any of the income my sites earn. Instead, I plan to just keep rolling everything beyond expenses into additional domains/niches. Each site seems to add another layer to this endeavor’s income snowball. So as long as I can get the individual sites even marginally profitable, adding more seems to be the smart route.

When I have that 1,000th domain earning it’s shiny quarter day in and day out, well, then I’ll decide what the next step is…

As if Network Solutions’ ridiculously overpriced domain registration fee and painful transfer process weren’t enough, now they’ve taken to kidnapping your domains if you happen to search for a domain via their site. I’ve hated NetSol ever since they essentially forced me to re-register my first ever domain by stalling me long enough in verifying an email that I was unable to transfer it away to someone with reasonable fees.

But this is beyond pale. All you have to do is use their interface to check on domain availability, and NetSol takes it upon themselves to grab up the page and essentially forces you to buy it through them, at their usurious price. That, or wait 4 days for them to drop it and hope you beat the tasters, who now have no problem seeing exactly what was searched for now that NetSol has handily exposed this info to the world.

Screw you too Network Solutions!

Elsewhere:

• Domain Registrar Network Solutions Front Running On Whois Searches [DomainNameNews]
• NSI Registers Every Domain Checked [SlashDot]
• Network Solutions steals domain ideas; Confirmed! [DomainTools]