Mike found this one, a domain name owned by Frank Schilling with a buy it now of $188,000. The domain is DavidJones.com, the domain was registered in 2000. Surprisingly the .net was registered one year earlier in 1999.
The domain now shows brand protection firm Marksmen as the registrant.
David Jones Pty Limited, trading as David Jones, is an Australian upmarket department store, owned by South African retail group Woolworths Holdings Limited. The do business at DavidJones.com.au. Currently the .com is still parked at Uniregistry.
“The domain is DavidJones.com, the domain was registered in 2000. Surprisingly the .net was registered one year earlier in 1999.”
The .com would have been a dropped name in 2000 for sure.
What I thought Paul, but usually Domain Tools shows you if a name previously dropped. It showed no drops.
IMO, it’s not necessary Domain Tools will always show drop. Take an example of my domain AbdulBasit.com which according to DT say “Creation Date: 2002-03-02” and shows no drop. BUT under “Whois History” says “1,069 records have been archived since 2001-12-17”.
On the other hand, a great sale if sold for 188K.
Thanks for sharing!
True it’s not 100% good point.
The .com.au is extremely strong in Australia and unless they plan to expand to overseas they really do not need the .com, i am sure they have wasted more money on worse assets though
More brands in Australia use .com now then previousy. The .com.au is just a band aid solution till they get their .com
Look at what happened to Telstra rebranding in 1995 because the domain Telecom.com was already registered.
NRL.com ANZ.com Racing.com all promoted heavily in OZ .
It’s a matter of time when everyone realizes there is only one .com
DavidJones.com was a bargain at that price.
I own some generic .com domains and get a SLEW of email intended for the .com.au site due to users commonly typing .com and forgetting the .au . Traffic leak is one thing, communication (very important) is another.
Has anyone ever thought about Packbell.net? It gets 3,000 email errors per day, intended for Pacbell.net, the former Pacific Bell Internet Services, now owned by SBGlobal or At&t.
I have tried to help the people, but its not the senders (auto-reply) its the poor pacbell person not getting legitimate emails. Imagine cutting and replacing the “k” in all those emails. Then the name itelf gets 30k hits per month.
Help! 20 years of this and it doesn’t stop!
Congratulations, and so forth. But how is this not cybersquatting?
Not cybersquatting at all. It’s just a very common name for a person (I know at least one David Jones myself!) that also happens to be the name of a major Australian department store.
I worked with a guy named David Jones at around the time this domain name was first registered. Which David Jones should have gotten it first?
@Phil,
Yes, it’s a common name. But do we really think the uncommon price tag was based on it being a common name? To me it looks like the inordinately high asking price was a custom fit for the established brand that ultimately bought it … no different from McDonald’s buying RonaldMcDonald.com (which is also a name belonging to many real people).
For some reason, DavidJones.com (registered out to 2021 after being acquired), just moved into RedemptionPeriod today?