5 all-time domain expirations in Internet’s history

http://whoapi.com/blog/1582/5-all-time-domain-expirations-in-internets-history/

14 5 12 years ago

ryanjshaw• 12 years ago

I find this an interesting challenge: I tried to think of whether there is any way to turn this into a profitable and ethical business opportunity, but couldn't. Can anybody?

By ethical I mean you don't try to drop catch the domains and sell them back (that's illegal I believe, even if you only ask for a small payment?).

Presumably you can't be a good Samaritan that monitors and makes an effort to contact sites that are near to losing their domains -- they'd have no incentive to pay you anything because there is no existing relationship, and they can renew the domain without your involvement.

Alternatively, as soon as you attempt to build a model that establishes such a relationship, your model is doomed to fail for the same reason you want your business to exist: if the company owning the domain can't keep on top of paying the domain, why would they keep on top of paying you? If they had the foresight to pay you, wouldn't they have the foresight to ensure the domain renewals get handled?

Is there a workable model? Or perhaps I'm overly critical; maybe there really is value in a business that double-checks things like this for you, maybe you could cold-email business and sell such a service?

Timmmmmm• 12 years ago

That title makes no sense at all. Perhaps they meant "5 all-time worst domain expirations"?

dmm• 12 years ago

HN automatically strips certain words from titles. Sometimes it messes up the titles a bit. The word here was probably "Top".

drewbug• 12 years ago

But, it looks like the title's the same on the actual site.

boobsbr• 12 years ago

In December of 2009, Americanas.com, the e-shop counterpart of Lojas Americanas (one of Brazil's largest retail stores), forgot to renew their domain.

www.americanas.com.br still worked, but the shop is actually called Americanas.com, and losing the domain the company is named after is a bit of a problem.

5 all-time domain expirations in Internet’s history

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