Is there a market for selling email addresses?

[tim1]

I was quick of the block when the new hotmail.co.uk accounts were launched and managed to register a few good addresses, such as poker and casino etc.
I've been looking at ebay and seen that people are selling much longer and less exclusive addresses than that, so that got me thinking maybe i could get a bit of money for my unwanted hotmail accounts.
Anyone ever done this? If so, what sort of money are we looking at?

 

[Robson]

I wouldn't have thought there is much money in free domain e-mails regardless of the address.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Hey,

I looked into this a bit, and I dont see much profit except for email addresses that are actual first names EG. 'Luke', 'John' etc. etc.

I own CFC[at]hotmail.com which is quite nice, very rare, and its also a great acronym for football fans, so I get loads of fans adding my address. But im not sure how much a mad Chelsea Football Club (CFC) would be willing to pay for such a great email for something they are obsessed with

- Luke

 

[AHA7]

I think it's a bad idea :imho:

I wouldn't be interested in buying nice one-word email addresses, such as poker, web, money, profit.... Plus they will get a lot of spam!

 

[Masahiro]

When I saw this, I thought you ment selling PEOPLE'S e-mails to spammers!

But seriously, there's not much value in free e-mails (@hotmail, yahoo, ect.)

If people wanted a good e-mail, they'd buy hosting, and a good domain, so they could have something such as [email protected]

 

[IAmAllanShore]

There IS a market for them.
It DOES violate the TOS of most free email service providers. (Hotmail.com at least, so I assume .co.uk as well)
Therefore, don't do it (I shouldn't need to say that last line)
-Allan

 

[SimpleDomaining]

there is market for everything, emails included. I when i registered a business name and called to buy a phone number, they spelled my business name wrong. and after one weak i was getting and getting advertising mails with that wrong name there. so even phone companyes are selling their databases.

 

[ryan2829]

There IS a market for them.
It DOES violate the TOS of most free email service providers. (Hotmail.com at least, so I assume .co.uk as well)
Therefore, don't do it (I shouldn't need to say that last line)
-Allan

You can easily get around that by saying buy me as a friend for a week and you can use my email address for life or something like that.

 

[wasistdas]

Hmmmmm.... I'm thinking now to start selling black holes far far away of the Galaxy

 

[IAmAllanShore]

You can easily get around that by saying buy me as a friend for a week and you can use my email address for life or something like that.

You can; but that doesn't make it right...
(And fwiw: it doesn't get around the TOS. See all the hippies on eBay selling "Ball Point Pens" and you get this _________ for free" whose auctions are shut down, etc. Trying to mask the thing of value behind a front does not bode well for your future buying/selling)

-Allan

 

[Grrilla]

See all the hippies on eBay selling "Ball Point Pens"

Please, let's not badmouth hippies or confuse/dillute the definition or the demographic. I'm an 'ol hippie, (not to be confused w/ an ex-hippy), and I've never offerred anyone "this______ for free" or sold ball-point pens, literally or figuratively. I'm sure there are probably a few granola grifters out there, (shame on them!), but, IMHO, Xgen slackers, dumpster divers, underpass urchins, mullet heads, creek rats, 3rd generation deadheads, and those who went bust after dotcom went boom- lets call them boom-busts- would be a better fit for the eBayers that you are portraying. C'mon IamAllan, let's get it straight! :p

It's true, I suppose, that there is a profit to be made selling just about anything. The Spammers have proven that point, over and over and over again. Personally, I think that time and energy are better spent in researching/marketing/developing domain names and websites than in mining for email names, which, as my hippie-kicking, Southern gentleman friend IAmAllanShore pointed out, is against the TOS of most of the email providers. (Although I might be interested in buying your "casino" one from you. How much do you want for it? ~~~ Jez Kiddin')

There are a handful that, probably, are marketable and could bring in a considerable amt of income- "God", "Jesus", and maybe "888", (for our Chinese brothers), or "Free" (for the eBay hippies), are some of the potentially lucrative email address names that come to mind. (BTW, I had OldHippie@Rock_com, at one time, but I forgot about it.)

 

[cvxdes]

Yeah, I'm prety sure.

they sell MSNs, AIMs, YIMs... they sell everything these days.

 

[scrsteven]

They can sell.. but not for much. I've heard of AIM screennames selling

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I actually enquired about this when I was thinking about whether there was a market for them. I emailed Hotmail a while ago and they confirmed that it is totally fine to sell hotmail accounts.

 

[Subc0nci0us]

I think jesus @ hotmail.com was sold at ebay for around $200 some time ago...