emjael07

Just finished what will seem to some to be an unnecessarily long-winded intro in the "Welcome" forum, so here's the first question.

Let's say I own CorrodedEarPro.com (which doesn't really exist, to my knowledge) and no one owns a trademark for this term, am I safe to offer it to whoever owns CorrodedEar-Pro.com for a BIN price, or is such a direct offer considered a bad-faith/squatting situation.

Thanks for any suggestions. I fear there are more "Domains 101"-style questions still to come.

MJ

If it is not TMed, it still might be someone's company. If it is just a random website, I'd say sure.. But people can make companies with crazy names. Just because its not TMed, I'm not sure if you can still take it... like "JeffsRockingChairs" might be a company but not TMed.. They might like the new domain though.. so long as you arent overcharging just because they have the website.

__________________
Wii Sucks | Tempe Computer Repair | Servers.me | Tos.me
Tucson Dog Training | Obama.sc <- for sale!

cybermonkey

Yes, absolutely. If it happens that you own BuyCeramicHeatersForLess.com and if it is not a TM, then you can approach Buy-Ceramic-Heaters-For-Less.com and ask them if they would be interested to buy a not hyphenated version. However, I never regged a domain with the only purpose to resell it to a specific company later. But I do agree with mike123106, do not overcharge them, as it can only make then angry. Good Luck!

__________________
Post it. Share it. Brag about it. :p

Daniel

I advise you try posting this in Legal Issues, I personally don't think this is alright, buying a domain just to resell, but hey, in the end - It's all up to the person who registers it.

__________________

emjael07

First off...thanks to all for the input.

Daniel, I'll likely take your advice and repost the original entry to Legal. Perhaps I should have been more clear that I did not purchase the name with the specific idea of reselling it to the owner of the hyphenated version (or anyone else in particular). Months afterwards, I saw that someone did have that hyphenated name. I realize I could sidestep the entire business simply by ignoring them and contacting the many others who are in the "corroded ear" field, but they seem the ones who'd have the most immediate interest. Checked for tm first, though.

Cybermonkey and Mike123106...good advice on being reasonable with the price. I intended to do that anyway. I don't mean to come off sounding sanctimonious, but the truth is that that's the way I would like to be treated in a "tables-turned" circumstance. Besides, I've come to believe (in my newbie opinion) that I'll achieve more of my at least short-term goals by selling what I want to sell at a reasonable price and moving on. Bearing in mind that "reasonable" tends to be a tad subjective in this world. And, finally, I hate pissing off people, if only because it leads to psyche drain.

Unless (in my exalted opinion) they really deserve it...

DropWizard.com

I get emails like that all the time. People/businesses offering the .net or org or even sometime the .com of a domain I own.

Never took offense to it. Even bought a couple of them.

However where a business has operated under a trade name and someone registers the name of the business with the intention of reselling it to the business. We call it greenmail. Used to be quite frequent about 3-4 years ago. I've always considered that offensive and I believe a few of the bigger companies sued on common law grounds and won. I don't know if there is much of it going on anymore.