Cybersquatters and entrepreneurs

Aeons ago, when I was leaving Earthlink to establish my own domain on the web, I considered using my monogram "WFDV" that had been so well known to my readers, particularly at AOL.

The problem was, someone already owned that domain name. No, not some radio station in Rome, Georgia, where there actually used to be a bluegrass radio station with those call leters, decades ago, but a speculator, who thought that maybe I'd want to buy it off of him.

I didn't, I set up CityOfLegends.com and the rest is history, so to speak.

A couple years later I was hanging out with Robert Davi, the actor, and he asked me about websites (Hanging out is an extended term here...we met theree or four times, usually because his wife and my wife hung out together. It seems he had been approached by a gentleman who had bought his name and was offering the then-star of "Profiler" his own custom website for only $1,500.00

Charming.

Custom being an interesting word in use here...it was probably actually going to be to a template, thrown up for pennies on the dollar at a nice margin and maintainable only if you uhad the exact tools used to create it or if you paid them to make changes. (He didn't go with it, and eventually the domain "RobertDavi.com" was bought up by an enterprising CPA with the same last name, thinking no doubt to drive and derive traffic through use of a better known name...there is actually a Robert Davi who works in the office there, but that's not the name on the masthead.)

I just hope, if he does put up a site eventually, it goes better than another actor's website...as that site has not been updated in over 5 years...but I won't name the actor, that would be

And so it goes in the world of the web speculation. My own last name, DeVault, when one of my brothers went to buy it to use for a business website, was found to have been bought by an email accumulator who would, for a reasonable fee, allow us to have an email account so that I could send my mail from "williamf@devault.com"...definitely a grey area of cybersquatting, but I understand the spirit in which it is offered.

When my second wife was working on her modelling career, we went to buy her name...it was unavailable...someone had bought it and put up baby pictures of their grandchild...or so they said. Within a year the site was down, and now the name is "parked"...sounds to me like someone took note when she was named to the "Top Net Models Hall of Fame" and wanted to cash in.

I was brought to this as I got a note the other day from a reader who wants to point out that "romanticpoet.com" is currently owned...has been for six years by the same person. No website...just keeps renewing the name, probably got it at a low annual renewal rate and is waiting for someone to come along and offer him a return on his investment. An unfortunate reality of the web is the fact that, like in "Highlander" - "There can be only one". Unless, of course, you want to make a sequel film or a TV series, but that's one of my own personal aggravations. But there can be only one website for a given address, although some accumulators have tried, with mixed results, to link multiple sites to a single name. You would think John Cusack and Joan Cusack would have bought up "Cusack.com" and shared it, but it is another site bought up by the same email squatters as "DeVault.com"...sigh.

As I mentioned several weeks back, I actually got an email the other day from a gentleman asking if I was interested in selling my domain. I wrote back and told him that, considering my longevity at this spot, I would need to find the offer "intriguing" and would need his assurance that it would not be used for porn or spam.

He never wrote back...probably speaking volumes in that (or not, how the heck should I know, he gave me no information about himself or his purpose, might have just been a crank fan for all I know...as many spammers as try to use my domain as a return address, wouldn't surprise me, either way...how gutless do you have to be to use a fake return address?)

So, at least for now, this domain is safe.

When Ann and I split, I got for her and set up a website for her forthcoming book (I presume it is still forthcoming)...but six months after I had last heard from her, I went ahead and let the domain drop...as usual I was paying into a woman's fortune long after sanity should have dictated. When and if she does launch the novel, I hope she has the smarts to put up a site for it...I'd like to say she can have the code and graphics I used for the one I had put up, it's pretty spiffy (yes, Ann, I still have all your modelling shots...I am a good steward of others' things...I even still have the folder of artwork my daughter, Peri, gave to me...it was the largest single Item, aside from my computer, that I took with me on the bus from Gulfport. Considering the fate of so much...)

Anyway, I digress...got to get back to work on the podcast. Still no more deliveries of additional readings...if I do not get a substantial number by 6:30 tonight (I need time to edit) EST, I will push back the concept show until January 7th...and go with the backup I have been labouring on for the past few days...

Later, folks. (oh, and E.J....interesting interview of sorts...)