Confessions Of A Cybersquatter

from the it's-a-tough-job dept

An amusing article from Fortune. The writer had written an article a couple of years ago about how almost all domain names that include the name of a celebrity had been bought up by one of two squatting companies that made "fan sites" for those domains. The only name he found that hadn't been taken was that of Joyce DeWitt, who apparently played Janet on the sitcom Three's Company. So, for the hell of it, the writer bought the domain for himself. After a year or so he finally put up a silly little site at the domain explaining what happened. He recounts the fan and hate mail he received for putting up the site. Eventually, Joyce DeWitt (or her "people") decided they wanted the domain themselves, so he handed it over. He says they haven't updated the site, but when I went there it was down. Perhaps it's getting bombarded following the Fortune story. Update: Aha. The Joyce DeWitt site is up again.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Old Man Harris, 1 Nov 2001 @ 10:44pm

    No Subject Given

    I just checked and as of 10:42 PM tonight you can still, if you hurry, get audralindley.com (Mrs. Roper).

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.