Domain inquiries : Not every CEO is an “arsehole,” but this one is

A startup I worked for many moons ago, thrived on the firecracker personality of its CEO, a Kiwi expatriate.

The guy was highly demanding, but was also a good listener that could tell BS and well-documented arguments apart. It wasn’t random that despite several rounds of layoffs, I remained with the company until its final dissolution.

The CEO would refer to himself as an “arsehole” in a strong New Zealand accent. He acknowledged the fact that he might not be likable for everything that he did, and actually gained more fans by admitting it.

Not every CEO is an “arsehole,” or an asshole, if you prefer the more common term.

And yet, a recent domain inquiry I received reminded me that indeed, the CEO title is often synonymous with obnoxious, rude and jerky behavior.

In this case, the inquiry for an aged, dictionary word .com quickly escalated into a list of threats, involving the “C” word. Not the one with four letters, but the one every decent domain investor detests seeing: Cybersquatter.

I’ve heard of cases where Domain Name Sales banned account holders for ever so much raising the tone responding to inquiries, and some were, in my opinion, completely unjustified.

Had I responded to this individual in a manner consistent with their unsubstantiated, ignorant claims and threats, I would have not been given a chance.

And yet, such emails are supposed to be addressed by domain portfolio owners, under the guise of a thicker skin.

That’s plausible, but not every moment of the day is the same, sometimes a sudden insult requires an equal action to push back the offender. We need to be able to defend our turf, assets and life, after all.

In this case, I had to block and ban that email address, and hope that they will shut up spewing garbage. For an investment-seeded company, their CEO surely is a major dickhead.

Thanks to a couple of tools, DomainTools and ZFBot, I was able to confirm that the same day, they registered a domain consisting of my generic keyword plus a descriptive word.  I’m now in a position to tell them to fuck off indefinitely, unless my asking price is met.

If you’re a CEO reading this, my apologies. Your business title is tainted, so spend some time inventing a new one.

Comments

  1. Haha…
    You gotta love these guys. They don’t get their way even though they have the money to get their way. Their loss.

  2. Kosta – Indeed. But one can’t buy class with money alone.

    Glad you’re having a great time in Holland.

  3. Don’t be a dick, tell us his name and company 🙂

  4. Insulting the person who has what you want? How does that get you what you want? That calls into question the CEO’s judgment.

    When someone contacts us about buying a domain we own, it’s really no different from a stranger ringing our door bell and asking to buy the car he sees parked in the driveway … or a person wandering into an art gallery and asking the price of a painting on display.

    In those situations, most people know that courtesy is appropriate. It’s almost unthinkable that they’d resort to insults and threats and throw a tantrum for not getting somebody else’s property for the price they want. But with domain names, buyers frequently behave this way.

    Uniregistry / DomainNameSales actually fosters this sense of entitlement among buyers. After 3 emails from 1 rude woman, I responded by saying, “Listen, lady”. She complained, and her complaint resulted in my being banned. Personally, I don’t think domain owners ought to be trampled by customers offering us $21 for domains we paid hundreds or thousands for … or bullied by a VP who orders us to act as “Uniregistry representatives”, as if we were behind the counter at McDonalds to be used as punching bags by rude customers!

    We need the flexibility to respond in a way that educates domain buyers about appropriate behavior. That’s the only way they can learn. Eventually, if we push back and explain that we aren’t customer service reps for them to yell at, then they WILL learn. The culture can change. People might begin approaching domain owners in the same way that they’d enter an art gallery – without that obnoxious sense of entitlement.

  5. Jamie – Eventually, I will. For now, I’m documenting some thoughts on this unpleasant encounter.

    Joseph – My thoughts exactly. He did not like the analogy and went ballistic. I really wanted to show him how far my vocabulary stretches for threat-makers but I didn’t want to challenge karma.

  6. Just ignore or let the brokers take the heat. More peace for me these days with the later.

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