How would you deal with a cybersquatter? Or otherwise known as Domain Vulture?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting
This happened to a friend of mine. Who used a domain host that did not bother to give him a renew notice, or renew automatically.
Cybersquatter was asking for 800, now 500 dollars for it. Said domain has recently had a marketing campaign pointing to it – to make matters worse.
The ICANN UDRP – domain arbitration is expensive and slow. Litigation is also expensive and slow.
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9 Answers
I’d move on. Change domain hosts, and keep better tabs on renewal deadlines.
I’ve already gotten my friend a new domain. But he did spent a ton on advertising on the previous domain.
They aren’t cheap, but [in spite of a bit of flack a few years back], you can trust Network Solutions to remind you to renew. I have been getting my renewal notices monthly for nearly a year for renewals in September.
Domain registrars ought to have this as a standard… and a standard procedure for notices of renewals.
The guy sniped the domain, I wonder if the 30-day re-claim ICANN offers applies.
Did your friend © their name? If so you can issue a cease and desist which orders them to sit on the domain until it’s up for registration again and to 301 redirect all traffic to your friends new URL. This won’t solve your problem outright, but at least the money that went into previous marketing initiatives won’t be waste.
I really feel for your friend. Losing a URL with some juice behind it is one of the worst things that can happen to a website, but the beautiful thing about the internet is that lightning will strike twice if you keep chipping away.
Someone is doing this to me right now. They own a domain I want, but aren’t doing anything with it. It’s been over a year. :( Not much I can do except offer a bunch of money, which I’m not prepared to do. So I guess I just wait.
Look up all the other domains s/he owns, particularly any relating to an active business s/he has and buy up a few cheap ones that are related and squat them.
@anartist that might be too expensive for the asker
@NRO how much is the domain he wants worth to him?
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