If you use the internet regularly, I’m sure you’ve mistyped a URL at least once or twice, and come across a webpage with nothing but useless links. This is actually a phenomenon called “domain squatting”. Almost every single domain name that remotely sounds like a word, or even the combination of two words have now been squatted on. These scum of the earth assholes’ are actually making fortunes abusing the open internet model.
Kevin Ham is the most powerful dotcom mogul you’ve never heard of, reports Business 2.0 Magazine. Here’s how the master of Web domains built a $300 million empire.
(Business 2.0 Magazine) — Kevin Ham leans forward, sits up tall, closes his eyes, and begins to type — into the air. He’s seated along the rear wall of a packed ballroom in Las Vegas’s Venetian Hotel. Up front, an auctioneer is running through a list of Internet domain names, building excitement the same way he might if vintage cars were on the block.
As names come up that interest Ham, he occasionally air-types. It’s the ultimate gut check. Is the name one that people might enter directly into their Web browser, bypassing the search engine box entirely, as Ham wants? Is it better in plural or singular form? If it’s a typo, is it a mistake a lot of people would make? Or does the name, like a stunning beachfront property, just feel like a winner?
…
That’s right, the guy makes HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars contributing absolutely NOTHING to society. In fact, he actually affects society negatively. As an internet entrepreneur, we often find our prospective domains squatted on. Not only is he filling the internet with junk, he’s preventing others from contributing to the internet. For a bloody spammer, he sure seems awfully concerned about his own privacy:
Registrant
KEVINHAM.COM
c/o Whois IDentity Shield
142-757 W. Hastings St., Suite #777
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6C 1A1
Someone should find his real address, and give him a serious beating.
