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Who is the Primary Owner of All the Domain Names?

Is it legal to buy a domain name that just expired and then sell it back to the previous owner for a profit?

  • Answer:

    Perfectly legal and even more so, perfectly legit to do so. But as rightly pointed out, they let it expire for a reason. Do note, almost every domain registrar has to provide a redemption period to the previous owner (even when the domain has expired) for them to get it back. If owners don't renew within the redemption period (a more costly affair vs the simple renewal), chances are, the original owner is not interested. However, a market does exist for other similar domain name owners. For example if http://yourdomain.net expires, you could contact the person holding the http://yourdomain.com or http://yourdomain.org domains and ask if they would be interested.

Faisal Khan at Quora Visit the source

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As Mark said, there's nothing illegal about it and many previous owners won't want to buy it anyway. They let it expire for a reason. If you are going to do this as a business model, prepare to be treated with a bit of distrust at minimum. Some people find it to be a bit irritating, disgusting, leeching, vulture-like, even stomach turning : http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114057161829579643-search.html?KEYWORDS=drop+catchers&COLLECTION=wsjie%2F6month

Adam Strong

It's not illegal to buy a domain name after it has expired the trick here exists in the fact that more often then not when a domain is allowed to expire the owner of the domain has lost interest or does not have someone to manage the domain. So it might be more profitable to only buy expired domains that rank well for particular keywords and monetize them yourself.

Mario Scrano

Right - and also be careful about registering name that are trademarks or the names of famous people.  If Lady Gaga let's her domain name expire, and you register it, they could probably just file a UDRP (domain name dispute) and just have the name awarded back to her.

Danny Sullivan

Certainly no problem legally...I don't see any ethical problems with it either.  But then I own more than one domain and that makes me according to some, a domain troll. 

Mike Nardine

If you are not American it should be fine .. If you are American they can sue you rather easily and you will probably lose big time.If you are not a US resident, and have no nexus to the USA let's say a France citizen they have little recourse and would cost them too much to sue you in France since the cybersquating laws in all other countries for the most part don't exist just the UDRP which has no financial penalty to loser on either side.Hence why I no longer own domain other than my business name.

Anthony Peppler

Someone did this to me with my first domain name, worldwizards-dot-com I just moved to world wizards-dot-net and made damn sure that never expired. I monitor it to see if he ever gives it up, and I take some joy in the knowledge that, whoever he is, hes been paying for it for 10 years now without getting a dime back :)

Jeff Kesselman

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