Ask HN: Is domain squatting still profitable? Is there a solution?

98 points

5 years ago

I have nothing to do with domain squatting, but I do own a .co.uk domain for over 20 years and 18 years ago I tried to buy the .com from what I then found out was a squatter, out of principle I turned their offer down and the .com domain remains vacant, it’s not a particular interesting or valuable domain, so I’m not surprised no one else bought it.

Fast forward to a few months ago, and I let one other domain expire, it was for a brand I was creating, the domain was a made up word and a squatter registered that domain as soon as it expired, assuming some service registered it without any human supervision as that made up word holds no value to anyone else and I consciously decided to let it expire.

Since I made up that word and it was 14 characters long, are they just going to keep it for 20+ years?

This just made me wonder how many vacant domains we have today, that it must still be (unethical and) profitable and if it’s time to do something about it?

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