Web Site Seeks To Profit on Kerry-Edwards Name

An Indianapolis bail bondsman is looking to cash in on the John Kerry-John Edwards Democratic presidential ticket by selling his www.kerryedwards.com site to the highest bidder, with a starting price of US$150,000.

But the man, who has owned rights to the Internet address for nearly two years, is not what is known as a "squatter," a person who purveys over Internet domain names using the brand names of large companies or franchises. The man is Kerry Edwards, a 34-year-old who bought the site to post family photos.

"I'm not an independently wealthy individual, unfortunately, and so it's in the interest of my family to auction the rights to the domain," Edwards said in a press release from Sedo.com, the Massachusetts company that is auctioning the site. "Once I received substantial, unsolicited offers, I believed it was time to engage a professional organization like Sedo.com that specializes in brokering domain names to maximize this opportunity for my family," he said.

Honest Luck

Frost & Sullivan senior analyst Mukul Krishna said that while some have called on Edwards to donate the domain to the Democratic cause, reaction to his auction of the site has been generally positive.

"He has had that domain registered before," Krishna told TechNewsWorld. "This is a perfectly genuine circumstance. To give it up, he should get some compensation. That is the general feeling."

Cambridge-based Sedo.com said it would be auctioning the domain name through July 31 to coincide with the nearby Democratic National Convention in Boston. Sedo.com opened the bidding at US$150,000, which was still the current high price July 23.

Slim Pickings for Squatters

While Krishna said there did not appear to be an attempt to profit from another's name in the case of Kerry Edwards, there are still cases of so-called "squatting." However, Krishna said smaller settlements resulting from such schemes, and court action that has repeatedly favored trademark holders, has discouraged the practice.

"It's nothing like it used to be," Krishna said. "It's become even more difficult for cybersquatters to make a quick buck out of registering a domain name. If you show intent to make a venture out of someone else's name, you'll certainly lose your case if it goes to court. That's why these people lose and why settlements, if there are any, are really down."

Krishna indicated that in addition to wider international legislation and enforcement on domain names, companies have learned to use hyphens, prefixes and other small changes to simply get a different domain, letting would-be squatters keep their domain names.

Intent and Image

In the case of Mike Rowe, who had registered his www.mikerowesoft.com site, his contention that he did not mean to encroach on Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) name were met with skepticism. Microsoft called it infringement, which resulted in bad publicity for the Redmond, Washington-based software giant.

The case was quickly settled out of court as Rowe, a Canadian teen-ager, agreed to hand the site over for an Xbox gaming console, developer forum membership, a new site and an invitation to Microsoft headquarters earlier this year.

Krishna, who said Rowe was "obviously a squatter," indicated that might have been a special case, and the prospects for squatters in general have diminished significantly.

"The ramifications of a legal battle with a much larger corporation are you are not going to win the case easily," Krishna said. "The world has changed so much over the past five years, especially with a lot of local governments getting involved, which makes it very difficult for these people to make money anymore," he said.