...to be pissed off about something I don't actually understand?

[RourkesWife]

Have namechanged as DH knows my usual name (thanks DD) but some of you will know who I am (Regular but not Royalty!)

DH's latest 'money making scheme' started this weekend. I don't understand it (properly) and don't believe that it is going to make him (us) any money. He has spent over £100 on it and I reckon he may as well have thrown fivers in the fire. I am (but not showing it). He spent more money on it last night, and I'm sure he's probably spending more as I type.

As I understand it: There has been a new internet/email 'tag' thingy issued (see, I told you I didnt understand). Like .com or .org or .co.uk

Most large companies buy up domain names as soon as they are released so for eg Barclays own Barclays.com / Barclays.org / Barclays.co.uk and all the permutations (barclaysbank / barclaybank / barclays-bank etc etc)

DH realised that some companies had not bought up the domain names with this new tag, and spent hours this weekend searching and then buying these names.

He seems to think that these companies (and some are HUGE) will pay him to buy these domain names off him.

I don't. I think they will ignore this insignificant little man and he will have wasted time and money on this venture.

I dont really understand it all (I can use a computer, but dont understand code/website building etc) but I cannot believe that this will do what he thinks.

I am really pissed off. We are not hurting for money, but are supposed to be 'being careful'. He doesnt work (much) so I feel like he's wasted family money (that I earn) on a pile of shite.

So, am I wrong? Is this crappy idea really a good idea? AIBU?

It was something that worked about a decade ago, but IMO any big companies with an online presence will have bought up everything that will make a difference, and IIRC there have been court cases where companies have sought control of such URLs as they are linked to the names, and the people who bought them up hoping to make a killing walked away with nothing (will try and find a link)

Domain-name squatting was supposed to be nullified by the new regulations- these new suffixes have to be demonstrated that you have a business name to register them.

The new suffixes are things like .coke, .mercedes etc

I do know someone who registered www.milk.com over 10 years ago, and is still holding out hope because 'it's worth over $1m!'

OP, your DH is trying to 'cybersquat'. IIRC, at the very start of the internet, some cyber-savvy types bought up domains that companies/famous individuals would want, BEFORE the companies/famous woke up to the internet. There were no laws/precedents for the courts (here and in US etc.) to work with, so the 'entrepreneurs' made a packet selling the domain names at inflated prices. Sort of a Flash Harry black market sort of thing.

BUT, in later years, the companies wised up and the law caught up. Mostly the cybersquatter can be forced to hand over the domain for no profit (and presumably with court fees they make a loss). If your DH's 'targets' are big enough to have obvious domains that they will want, they are big enough to afford competent lawyers.

He's a bit dim, your DH, isn't he?

The problem is that domainname-squatting causes real headaches for new companies trying to find useable domainnames for their products!

Everything of any use has gone, and the new corporate suffixes are just too expensive to purchase and maintain for small businesses.

The example you've given [email protected] is an email address ....just an alias mapped to a domain. If he hasn't bought the domain itself then these email mappngs are useless. Also he needs to actually buy the domains properly not just park them, so in other words they need to be registered with both the registration body and an ISP.

WhereYouLeftIt said it much better than I did, thank you.

It won't come up when someone types it into Google because it takes a LOT more than a domain name to get things to appear in Google. My name for instance...I have a domain name which is www.myname.co.uk...when I google my own name, my website never comes up because I have not maximised the sites searchability with aricles and embedded links...the biggies have people working on this 24-7.

Am not up to date on the law in this area but gallicgirl and swanker are right about having to show connection - a brand name such as vodafone will be protected by intellectual property law rights such as being a registered trademark and therefore anyone pretending they own that brand name will be sent a cease and exist letter by company with threat of legal action - think all the cases used to be heard by the world intellectual property organisation www.wipo.com so he might actually be costing himself money if he has to defend himself ( obviously sensible response would be just to hand over domain name may be able to cheekily ask to be recfunded cost of registration so rcover his 100 quid but unlikely)

Your husband is a fool. I say that as someone who works in digital marketing and SEO.

I think what you are describing is that he's bought vodafone.me.uk . He's planning to set up a dummy page on that URL, so if people search for vodafone, his webpage will appear in the search listings, people will click on the link and be forwarded, not to a page about Vodafone as they are expecting but to his own website? So he's using their brand name to generate hits for his website.

What is he planning to do with the people once they get their, bearing in mind they're searching for stuff about vodafone? Unless your husband sells products in line with the domain names he's bought and even then, its hardly going to convert into sales.

Google takes a huge amount of things into account when it ranks results, they include number of hits on a page, URL, frequency of words, links to a page and many other things. And it's very good about spotting and eliminating spam pages.

"Your husband is a fool. I say that as someone who works in digital marketing and SEO."

Irrespective of what you do for a living that seems a little strong / unnecessary.

Clytaemnestra, he's not doing it for traffic, it says in the OP he's hoping to sell them on to the relevant companies.

OP - is this what he's planning to do? www.sedo.com/uk/park-domains/how-parking-works/?tracked=&partnerid=20293&language=e

Although they're dressing it up as how to make your unused domains work for you, it's basically squatting on domains people might put into their address bar by mistake.

So if I typed in www.vodafone.me.uk (or whatever) into the search bar when I was looking for www.vodafone.com then I would come to your page instead. 99.9999999% of people would realise their mistake and type a different address in/go to google - the remainder (and they're the same people who get viagra spam and think it looks a good deal) might click on one of the links on this squatting page. That will take the user to another page, who will pay the squatting page a very VERY small amount of money for each click.

This works (a bit) if you have a typo address. So using the vodafone example, if you owned vodaphone or vodfaone you'll get hits from all the bad spellers/typers out there. It occasionally can work regionally - so if vodafone owned .com and you owned vodafone.co.uk then you would pick up those hits too.

It's not going to work for the obscure endings because people default to .com or .co.(region) if they can't remember the address.

Google knows how to spot and ignore these pages, so your only point of access will be mistakes in the address bar.

" So he could now set up a link to his own website if someone type vodafone into google and his link comes up."

I took this to mean that he wanted to get people to click on his links via google and it would take him through to another page.

It's not going to wok either way though :(

wok = work. :)

Id be very careful about this if i was OP

the big names are very very keen on protecting their name and very litigious in some cases

There was a small restaurant near us got taken to court for using same name as a brand name (although it is a word as well) and had to rename.

DP is a web developer and told me to say that you YANBU. He said tell him to stop as it is a waste of money, and can lead to legal trouble. Domain squatting on works on certain things end result, wasted on money on renewals.

WhereYouLeftIt - Dim is quite a favourable desciption at the moment, I'm so fuckin mad.

Thing is, he's not computer savvy at all. I doubt he understands this himself - but there is NO WAY he will admit he's in the wrong. Best case (to my mind) is that he will now sit on these domain thingys and we accept he has wasted over £100 on them, worst case that he now gets 'into trouble' with some of these companies

So I didnt understand it - but it doesnt look like I'm wrong does it?

This domain name thing has been known about for ages - I had to do some work related to it 18 months back. All big companies were being advised long before then by their lawyers to move to cover themselves on the issue and no doubt will have. Your hub would have more success putting his fivers on black at the casino.

Tell him he is not to spend any more money on this until he has sold, for a profit, all the existing ones he's bought.

If my husband was doing this against my will with our money, I'd cancel his bank card!

You are not wrong. It sounds like he doesn't understand it either I'm afraid. Honestly if I were you I would show him this thread. He may be annoyed about it but that is better than legal trouble and people here seem to genuinely know what they are talking about.

Well i've just asked my brother whilst i was on skype (he owns his own search engine optimisation agency, but also does web development as a side service), he explained it all and gave a few links to me - the wikipedia anti squatting one is a good read that someone else posted above me.

very interesting, but tbh even i knew this was unlikely to pan out - this sort of thing has been dragged through the courts years and years and years ago - i remember reading about it in the late 1990s! and this is someone who doesn't (and hasn't ever) worked in IT or anything to do with the internet, short of a 2 year stint in my brother's digital marketing agency where i did all the admin/office manager stuff as they were growing the company.

SO...

What i'm trying to say is: your DH is years late on this bandwagon, even IT and legal morons like me know it's a dud, YANBU and he shouldn't have wasted your joint income on such a scheme.

Heck, I've just googled a bit after reading the wikipedia links, there's tonnes of stuff on this topic on the internet already - how come your DH didn't read any of it?!

I think the more worrying things aren't in the detail - the most concerning aspects of this to me are:

1. Lack of research / common sense - get rich quick schemes just don't exist unless you have knowledge someone else doesn't perhaps - but in 99% of cases these are just scams or don't work

2. Spending your joint money without consultation esp on a venture where he is "not computer savvy"

Those two are massive warning signs for me that a full on, frank discussion is needed to address the problems. Nothing to do with this particular example.

Big brands aren't stupid. They pay consultants thousands, nay millions, to make sure they have the right domain names and TLD suffixes (the .com etc he seems to be referring to). If they haven't got it, they don't want it. Too many of them got burned back in the 1990s with this sort of thing for it to be an issue now.

For example, there are lots of .gb names around as brands don't want those; they use .uk instead. The domain name coke.gb isn't used, for example; doesn't mean they don't know they can own it, it just means it holds no value for them.

The newest TLD is .xxx, which has been under debate for years; again, anyone who wants it has it.

I can't see your DH making a penny from this. If the brands want the name, they'll have it, and if in the unlikely situation they do want something he's got then setting the lawyers on him is just as likely as paying large sums for it.

Thank you all - I appreciate your time and views and it helps for me to see that my worries were not unfounded.

This is not the first 'get rich quick' that he has embarked on - and I doubt it will be the last. More money down the drain then.

I once knew a guy who had bought up the domain names with 'Starbucks' in. He thought they'd pay big bucks. Instead they took him to court and got the domains for free and he had to pay court costs. That happened in 1999, so why on earth would people still be trying it now.

Well I sent him the wiki link. He's not bothered - reckons it doesn't apply to him. Says it all really.

Thanks for your time guys, not any more, kinda now. But I dont know if I can be bothered to argue about this.