Michael L Gueterman wrote:

>   Sorry for this somewhat off topic post, but the following
> pushed all of my "pet peeve" buttons.
>
>   I was preparing to register a new domain name with the Internic
> this past weekend, and happened to check on 'hp3000.com' to see
> if it was registered.  It was (with DIS Research Ltd), so I
> (Snip)

Mike (and others):

A couple of years ago someone on the list was checking registered sites and
found among others 'lboyd.com' or something like this.  He/she had found
several (>20) registered sites picked directly off of our HP3000-L
subscriber names.  I found it interesting and amusing.

Unfortunately in a "free" market everything that is in demand has a price
(or fortunately, if you have something that is in demand).  Because the
"price" of registering and maintaining a registered site is too cheap, some
will grab possible site names for which others would be willing to buy.
These individuals can then make a profit for registering first.  If the cost
was closer to the actual value, you would not have this gray market of
reselling site names.

In the telephone business, it works better because the cost is closer to the
value.  Sometimes a company will purchase the phone number from someone else
(I remember the Dallas Times Herald did this when I worked there), but
people don't typically buy phone numbers just to resell them in the gray
market.

My $.02 worth,

LB