{"id":63,"date":"2008-10-10T16:28:20","date_gmt":"2008-10-10T21:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/2008\/10\/10\/french-and-american-idiots\/"},"modified":"2008-10-10T17:34:39","modified_gmt":"2008-10-10T22:34:39","slug":"french-and-american-idiots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/french-and-american-idiots\/","title":{"rendered":"A French idiot and an American moron"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hold domains as “hostages<\/em>“, “not allowing people who want them to use them.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

This moronic allegation came in an email, from some French guy named “Guillaume Sibelle” from Paris, France. Twice he placed a lowball offer of 60 euro for a domain I own, and twice I had to slap him back to reality with my very reasonable counter-offers, eventually canceling his bids at Sedo.<\/p>\n

After he could not start an offer for the 3rd time as I set a minimum price, Guillaume Sibelle emailed me saying that I “block people for years that want to use a domain name.<\/em>” I am not sure how I am doing that, since I paid to acquire that domain. I can do whatever I want with it. In fact, I don’t have to set up a web site, I can use it as a mail-only domain or a private network. I can put a picture of my cat on it.<\/p>\n

Or a picture of Guillaume Sibelle next to the word “idiot”.<\/p>\n

Where do these people come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Guillaume Sibelle appears to be a student of architecture. Should people in France trust Guillaume Sibelle with the design and building of their residences, parks or museums?<\/p>\n

Guillaume Sibelle did not even have the foresight to register his name as a .com and he got upset because I asked to be compensated for my investment in a domain name, registered five years ago. What do I tell this moron, other than to piss off in French?<\/p>\n

During the exchange of a few short emails, he told me my business model of selling domains for profit will soon vanish. At that point I provided him with links to various domain sales trackers, such as DNJournal to see for himself that my business model works just fine.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there are hundreds of such morons on the Internet, just like Guillaume Sibelle. When the Internet became commercial, they were still too young to be involved in the market and right now all the good domains are gone.<\/p>\n

It’s not my fault Guillaume Sibelle’s mom didn’t pop him out a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

Also this week, some lady from San Francisco emailed me about her domain that she lost by not renewing it. It was her first name in .com. Network Solutions auctioned it off via NameJet and I ended up buying it for $950. The domain has traffic, backlinks and it’s 12 years old; to me the price was justified. To her astonishment, that $950 represented “95 years of renewal fees” and she questioned my minimum asking price, offering $75 instead.<\/p>\n

I told her to go ahead and register her full name, which was still available. She didn’t email me back after this. Four days later, her full name is still available as a .com<\/p>\n

Some people just don’t get it, no matter how clear you present the facts to them.<\/p>\n

Now, I am not sure who is more dangerous: an idiot that is uninformed about how things work and is obsessing about me keeping domains “hostage”, or an angry ignoramus that attempts to justify their own lack of action for a property that they let lapse. Shame, as her resume shows she worked for a few good “dot com” companies in the 90’s.<\/p>\n

I would have given her the domain for as little as 25% profit, to justify a few parameters: my credit card fees, my taxation premium and the fact that I spent time researching a list of pre-released domains.<\/p>\n

But I simply dislike people with attitude that want a hand-out and don’t want to do anything to earn it.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hold domains as “hostages“, “not allowing people who want them to use them.” This moronic allegation came in an email, from some French guy named “Guillaume Sibelle” from Paris, France. 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