sales Breaking: HH.com Sells to China

Thanks for sharing.

Congratulations to The Hecker Law Group.

Perfect!

When I was contacted about this domain, the pricing was over $6M. I have no doubt it was a solid 7 figure sale.

I'll wait for the WHOIS to change, so that I can verify myself that HH.com is under Chinese control (still waiting on better proof of FO.com too).

If those 2 were definitely out of USA control, then by my count the number of 2-letter .com domains owned by USA registrants would drop from 340 (my current count) to 338. 338 is magical, because it's exactly 50% of the 676 2-letter .com domain names.

GeorgeK said:

I'll wait for the WHOIS to change, so that I can verify myself that HH.com is under Chinese control (still waiting on better proof of FO.com too).

If those 2 were definitely out of USA control, then by my count the number of 2-letter .com domains owned by USA registrants would drop from 340 (my current count) to 338. 338 is magical, because it's exactly 50% of the 676 2-letter .com domain names.

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FO.com was 100% sold but I can't confirm the nationality of the buyer... hopefully the whois gives us some clues soon

Out of curiosity, do you know what the percentage was for US LL.com owners this time last year? Must've dropped quite a bit in the past 12-18 months

James Iles said:

FO.com was 100% sold but I can't confirm the nationality of the buyer... hopefully the whois gives us some clues soon

Out of curiosity, do you know what the percentage was for US LL.com owners this time last year? Must've dropped quite a bit in the past 12-18 months

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I posted some older stats on Twitter a few weeks ago, in response to someone else. See March 20, 2017 tweets at:

https://twitter.com/GeorgeKirikos/with_replies

Actually, those were for Chinese on March 20. But, if you go back further, there would be earlier numbers. If Twitter doesn't let you scroll back more than a year, you can use their "Advanced Search" to limit it to a date range, to get at the older ones.

Curious if buyer is HellyHansen.com
They are famous for their HH logo - and fits well obviously with this amazing domain.

Thanks for sharing...

James Iles said:

FO.com was 100% sold but I can't confirm the nationality of the buyer... hopefully the whois gives us some clues soon

Out of curiosity, do you know what the percentage was for US LL.com owners this time last year? Must've dropped quite a bit in the past 12-18 months

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I believe FO.com was bought by a US based investor.

I don't understand why folks would put WHOIS privacy on such valuable domain names. I'd want a very public record of ownership of such a name, to ensure that I can get it back if someone steals it, etc. (i.e. make sure the WHOIS is archived at DomainTools, etc.).

They're trusting the registrars more than I would!

GeorgeK said:

I don't understand why folks would put WHOIS privacy on such valuable domain names. I'd want a very public record of ownership of such a name, to ensure that I can get it back if someone steals it, etc. (i.e. make sure the WHOIS is archived at DomainTools, etc.).

They're trusting the registrars more than I would!

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It's mostly harassment. Guy who owned Tesla.com was harassed countless times to sell the name he had incredible foresight to register in 1992. He even said people showed up to his house to try to buy the name. Whois privacy, is a necessary tool for the right name, especially million dollar names that you don't develop, but have no desire to sell either.

Dont take it from me though, let's here from the seller himself (Credit Namepros)

In addition, between the UDRP, and the frequent (but not very serious) requests to buy, borrow or use the name it was becoming a burden. Despite being insulated by my registrars privacy scheme, people still tracked me down, and called my home, sent letters, and in one case even dropped by for a visit.

He eventually caved and sold the name to Tesla motors. Tesla were not the ones harassing him, he's been harassed for that name all his life, before Tesla even existed and even successfully defended against losing it in a UDRP lawsuit handed to him to Tesla Industries. (my money's on them being the ones harassing him)

So I have no problem with that. The crazy part is he set Tesla.com's to PRIVACY, but they still found him. If he had privacy off, he'd probably have even more people harassing him to sell, and could be dangerous since this is a million dollar name we're talking about (Problem we'd all like to have )

The biggest thing I don't understand are why people hide the purchase price of really, really good names like fly.com which was just reported to be sold and so on. It helps set the market, and usually there's nowhere to go but up. Even Tesla.com had a Non Disclosure agreement when it got sold

Xabial said:

So I have no problem with that. The crazy part is he set Tesla.com's to PRIVACY, but they still found him. If he had privacy off, he'd probably have even more people harassing him to sell, and could be dangerous since this is a million dollar name we're talking about (Problem we'd all like to have )

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Unless one physically moves, the info would still be available from DomainTools WHOIS history, or other sources (e.g. Archive.org, etc.). If one assumes that the registrant hasn't changed, one can use other databases to try to track that registrant down.

There are laws against harassment, so unless one is overly sensitive, that shouldn't really be an issue. He could be like the owner of Milk.com, who essentially says "Don't bother me unless you have $10 million or more to spend"

http://www.milk.com/value/

Perhaps the mistake he made was in giving people the false idea that they had a chance to get it at a lower price. If you quash that idea swiftly and decisively, then that should make those people go away.

GeorgeK said:

Unless one physically moves, the info would still be available from DomainTools WHOIS history, or other sources (e.g. Archive.org, etc.). If one assumes that the registrant hasn't changed, one can use other databases to try to track that registrant down.

There are laws against harassment, so unless one is overly sensitive, that shouldn't really be an issue. He could be like the owner of Milk.com, who essentially says "Don't bother me unless you have $10 million or more to spend"

http://www.milk.com/value/

Perhaps the mistake he made was in giving people the false idea that they had a chance to get it at a lower price. If you quash that idea swiftly and decisively, then that should make those people go away.

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Wow I didn't know that about Milk.com! Awesome.

Even though seems to me not everyone can be that forward, stern or even know what they want, it does seem like a requirement these days when you own these potential multi million dollar names. So to your point, I agree Fair enough

If I could add one more, Go to Lent.com and see what he has to say about his domain, and repeated inquiries to buy it. I guarantee you, you'll have a good laugh.

Thanks for sharing....

James as always thank you. Because of their thoughts of domains as a "hard asset" no one pays like the Chinese-and that's to their credit. It's also why we try to concentrate on pinyin names.

GeorgeK said:

I don't understand why folks would put WHOIS privacy on such valuable domain names. I'd want a very public record of ownership of such a name, to ensure that I can get it back if someone steals it, etc. (i.e. make sure the WHOIS is archived at DomainTools, etc.).

They're trusting the registrars more than I would!

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Thanks for the tip

Best of luck

Great info!

Thanks for this coverage @James Iles

Xabial said:

It's mostly harassment. Guy who owned Tesla.com was harassed countless times to sell the name he had incredible foresight to register in 1992. He even said people showed up to his house to try to buy the name. Whois privacy, is a necessary tool for the right name, especially million dollar names that you don't develop, but have no desire to sell either.

Dont take it from me though, let's here from the seller himself (Credit Namepros)

In addition, between the UDRP, and the frequent (but not very serious) requests to buy, borrow or use the name it was becoming a burden. Despite being insulated by my registrars privacy scheme, people still tracked me down, and called my home, sent letters, and in one case even dropped by for a visit.

He eventually caved and sold the name to Tesla motors. Tesla were not the ones harassing him, he's been harassed for that name all his life, before Tesla even existed and even successfully defended against losing it in a UDRP lawsuit handed to him to Tesla Industries. (my money's on them being the ones harassing him)

So I have no problem with that. The crazy part is he set Tesla.com's to PRIVACY, but they still found him. If he had privacy off, he'd probably have even more people harassing him to sell, and could be dangerous since this is a million dollar name we're talking about (Problem we'd all like to have )

The biggest thing I don't understand are why people hide the purchase price of really, really good names like fly.com which was just reported to be sold and so on. It helps set the market, and usually there's nowhere to go but up. Even Tesla.com had a Non Disclosure agreement when it got sold

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After you have said it all, you still asking for why people prefers non disclosure after sales. Its all for security purpose. People can be very funny at times, when they know you sold a name for a huge amount. You know what can happen.

Cheers.

elevator said:

After you have said it all, you still asking for why people prefers non disclosure after sales. Its all for security purpose. People can be very funny at times, when they know you sold a name for a huge amount. You know what can happen.

Cheers.

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But we're not idiots. One can assume the price is in the millions. It would be nice to know exactly how much, without disclosing anything else. Selling a one word .com nets you serious, life changing cash -- the kind of cash that gets people into domaining.

Even if he got stock for it like Uber trading 2% of it's company stock to buy the domain Uber.com

Xabial said:

But we're not idiots. One can assume the price is in the millions. It would be nice to know exactly how much, without disclosing anything else. Selling a one word .com nets you serious, life changing cash -- the kind of cash that gets people into domaining.

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That is what makes difference from one person to others. Everybody can not expose their proceeds and some does not border care about any likely consequence.
Given the price is good for domainers to know but everybody can not do that, and that is why you are seen some with non disclosure .

elevator said:

That is what makes difference from one person to others. Everybody can not expose their proceeds and some does not border care about any likely consequence.
Given the price is good for domainers to know but everybody can not do that, and that is why you are seen some with non disclosure .

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What difference does it make! You're going to hire bodyguards anyway in light of your wealth and I would imagine moving to some place like Beverly Hills. It seems like a selfish thing to do for the industry if the seller requests it.