There have probably been dozens of times where I noticed the exact match .com domain name of someone famous expired and it had been previously owned by them or someone associated with them. On occasion (very rarely), I have reached out to the person or to their representatives to let them know about the expiry and what will happen if the domain name isn’t renewed.
For whatever reason, people don’t always respond kindly. I guess some people think I am trying to scam them or think I am somehow trying to take something from them. I guess domain name ownership is still a bit foggy for most people, and they have their guard up when someone emails them out of the blue. This has made me a bit reluctant to contact people because I don’t really want a nice “head’s up” to turn into a time suck.
If you noticed the domain name of someone famous expired and was going to auction if not renewed, would you contact them to let them know?
I just did that yesterday…. a domainer had a pretty sweet .ca in redemmption and I actually called him and offered 5k for it. He turned me down which is what I expected but at least the domain will not expire. Would have been a shame because he has owned it for a number of years.
I would only do it if I cared about what they are all about in life. In fact, I just gave some free advice to someone out there in the real world of end users who is now at the mercy of Mr. Schilling himself holding the most desired domain, including coming up with an alternate available to reg which I normally do not do for people. Last time I named someone’s business she wound up being featured on the TV news very quickly though.
And indeed, often no good deed goes unpunished, and turns into a a time suck.
Yes, I have done this on several occasions and been greeted with suspicion or hostilty when I was contacting management companies or agents for celebrities. Usually old time actors or actresses and I just didn’t want to see that name disappear into the great maw of Huge D. etc. My leads were never acted on and these names disappeared into closeouts or pending delete. Never a word of thanks and I don’t bother now…
Your suggestion that it can be a time suck is exactly what I have found it to be.
Just over 10 years ago I noticed a Colorado resort’s nice generic name had expired and was approaching deletion, but received no response to an email sent to the manager or owner (I can’t recall) regarding this.
I followed it up with a long distance phone call but the person who answered the phone refused to put me through to the manager, even though I explained they were about to lose their domain name.
It dropped, snapnames picked it up and it sold at auction for $10,000. I note that on the day the domain entered the 5-day deletion period that the resort purchased the same keyword with the word inn at the end. Oh well…