Going through the domains that are transferred over to InternetTraffic.com I notice a batch of 21,000 names moving over from hitfarm. Like any domain investor, my first curiosity was to find out who has the 21,000 domain portfolio moving over to Frank’s house of money. But guess what? Every damn domain in the portfolio has Moniker’s privacy protection on it.
While I’m sure there is some sort of price break for someone that has that many domains, the regular price of $4 per year/per domain would mean that someone spent over $80,000 for the privacy. To some $80,000 is no big deal but to most it’s a heck of a lot of money. My next question is why? Privacy protection does nothing for the owner. If someone sues them, Moniker will hand over your info in a matter of minutes. Forget Chef, Moniker will do it for him. WIPO and URDP? Same thing. The privacy thing does you no good here. So is it worth $80,000 to stop you from getting spam? Not to me.
On a side note, Hitfarm lost 21,000 domains yesterday. That is a HUGE amount of names. I would think that is a thousand or so dollars per day in parking at least. Do the math over the entire year and it’s very possible that Hitfarm took a half million or more hit. Then again I may be overstating how much that portfolio makes in parking. I looked through thousands of the domains and I came across very few category killers. Half of it is typos, much of it trademarks. Maybe that’s why he thinks he needs privacy.
There must be some more specific reason for buying privacy for those domains, because I have seen many webmasters and domain investors that are doing really shady things with their sites but they are not using domain privacy. Maybe Moniker for this big customers gives privacy for free. Because they are already spending that much money of renewals.
Best thing to maintain privacy is to create different e-mail address for each domains and forward all e-mails to one account. Then theres no fast way to find out who is behind it.
I doubt, if Frank will accept the domains with private whoise, I doubt if that can be allowed with Frank, who knew the rudiment of domain parking. Well! I am sure if it is sedo such person will be asked to remove the whois privacy on all of the domains. But hek that is a lot of money on parking alone.
A few years back, my partner and I had a large portfolio with Moniker and they were practically giving privacy away. Your assumption that there is a price break is spot on.
-Bill
“Moniker will hand over your info in a matter of minutes. Forget Chef, Moniker will do it.” – LOL!
“Moniker will hand over your info in a matter of minutes. Forget Chef, Moniker will do it.” – LOL!
I am pretty sure that the owner of these names isn’t paying moniker a cent for privacy. Many registrars would be happy to waive fees for such a large portfolio.
Beats me too!
Presumably all of these 1000s of names are for sale.
Unless they had owners email address previously and were added to sedo/afternic then switched to privacy why the hell bother.
I’ve only ever set one domain of mine to private in 10yrs.
Reason is simple all my names are for sale so why make it impossible for any potential buyer to contact me.
Privacy does not mean owners cannot be contacted.
Shane, rest assured that acct holder isn’t paying a dime for privacy. And if you’re paying $4 a pop simply ask them to at least lower it to $1. Since they’ve been under new management it’s difficult to get them to waive it completely.
One of my accts charges me $.02 per year for privacy. Another, I believe, is free.