Catching a Domain Name

Back in the early 90's there was a bit of a gold rush mentality when it came to domain names. I knew folks who made a business out of registering as many domains as they could and then turning around and selling them, sometimes for huge profits. Often times this is known as "Cybersquatting". It refers to the purchase of a domain name in bad faith. Usually this is done with the intention of reselling that domain name back to the legal copyright holder. This is now legally recognized as a violation of the trademark of the holding company. Of course there are legitimate disputes both online and in the real world. The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) had to change its name to World Wrestling Entertainment after a dispute with the World Wildlife Fund. McDonalds settled with a high school student early on over mcdonalds.com.

Here is an item of interest on the local front. Where would you go to find the Humane Society? Also consider that the Humane Society is an international organization.

If you were to use the .org extension, www.humanesociety.org resolves itself to The Humane Society of the United States. If you were to use the .com or commercial extension to go to www.humanesociety.com it would take you to The Humane Society of Canada. If you tried www.thehumanesociety.com using the .COM or commercial extension it would take you to the web site of Pet Ark. I would have to consider that a bit confusing.

However, of all the locales possible, Tacoma/Pierce County is the home page owner of www.thehumanesociety.org which has the correctly used .ORG or organization extension for a non-profit. I guess that makes The Humane Society of Tacoma and Pierce County "THE" Humane Society.

For those interesting in adopting or volunteering, their real world address is ..

2608 Center Street
Tacoma, WA 98409
Phone: (253) 383-2733

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I once considered buying the old domain of Free Range Media back (www.freerange.com), three years after Luminant Worldwide bought the company and subsequently closed its doors. Someone had snapped it up and wanted 12,000 dollars for it.

Any good domains out there that are still available?