domains Buying A Domain Name to Get A Twitter Handle – Wrong or Genius ?

I don't see anything wrong with that. Both domain and account were abandoned.

I see a great deal wrong with it.

Twitter just doesn't give away Twitter handles to domain owners directly. Trust me. I've tried several times.

Although there have been instances where Twitter has handed off handles from a totally barren profile (Eggheads - No profile picture and no tweets for more than a year) to the domain owner.

In this case, Joel Runyon has actually hacked the twitter account by acquiring the domain name. If I were the old Twitter account owner, I could get it back by contacting Twitter. His only luck is that the old account owner has no clue.

I wonder wether Twitter would see this as a legitimate way of obtaining an account. I highly doubt so as another person signed up for the account originally. On the other hand I also doubt Twitter does much checking unless reported by someone.

This does raise an issue however. How many of us forget that we have used a domain email for registering with services, letting the domain drop without updating the email address poses concerns that others will be able to obtain access to services in your name. For some services (like this clearly unused Twitter handle) the issue might be minimal but what if say Amazon account storing credit card details or Paypal accounts etc were also used. The new owner of the domain can now easily take over those accounts 9providing 2 factor authentication isn't used)