Sometimes I can only laugh at the strangeness of Internet domain trading and squatting. In August 2015, I registered, for two years, the dot net, org, and xyz extensions for gaggles. The com was taken. I grabbed gaggles to create an email address for people to contact me to support my then-in-progress exposé about Google. With the sound geese make in mind, I sniped at the search entity’s new parent company and alphabet.xyz domain.
Last month, I let all three expire. I own too many domains that are too costly to keep for the value they give: None. Had gaggles.com been mine, though, I would hold them all. More renewals are passing by, or have gone. Meanwhile, I got to giggle about gaggles, because someone else snatched up the dot net and would like me to buy it back. Eh, seriously?
The first email, from Lucy, dated Sept. 28, 2017, reads: “Seeing that you have a similar domain name I am curious if you would benefit in acquiring the gaggles dot net from me?” Another query dropped yesterday, but from Amy: “I am fairy certain that you are domain name owner. I have a similar name to yours gaggles.net”. Both senders, whom I assume are the same person, think that I still possess the dot org.
My registrations were privacy-protected, so the emails arrive via proxy: meaning the sender doesn’t know who I am. The second contained a link, which I opened Incognito in my browser (see screenshot). Gaggles dot net is being offered through a website at primalsale.com. A quick WHOIS search finds that domain is privacy-protected, so I can’t see who owns it. BUT! Get this! Primalsale.com expires soon—on Day of the Dead. Maybe some squatting of my own would be appropriate should someone forget to renew. How ironic would that be, if they didn’t?
Photo Credit: F Mira