One day a 'Google' might be a form of currency, but in the meantime those
without Google shares have to make do with registering all manner of Google
domain names in the hope that either Google will buy them back or another
speculator will buy them at a higher price.
The web search giant raised the stakes this week when it registered four new
names suggesting that it will have need for other
Google related domains in
the not too distant future.
It has registered GoogleMagazines.com, GooglePapers.org, GoogleMicrofilm.com
and GoogleLibrary.org.
But the world of Google domains gets more interesting when you type in new
possibilities yourself. Such searches reveal hundreds of other owners of
Google-related domain names.
One such is Wilf Percival, founder of Multimedia International, a
Sheffield-based content provider to the mobile phone industry.
Percival registered the potentially highly sought-after domain name
www.googlephone.com in 2002 and will
consider any reasonable offer for it. He claims to have around 350 domains of
which at least three are Google related.
Percival denies that he is cyber-squatting, insisting that the googlephone
domain has been used for business purposes, although there is no page on the
site at present.
"If Google contests my right to own the domain we can prove that we have
traded using it and they will have to make me a pretty good offer," he told
vnunet.com.
However, Percival appears to agree with the view that Google's new
registrations may increase opportunistic registrations.
When told about the recent registrations by Google he said: "Oh, I'd better
register a few more then."
Percival said that he is in the process of building a website to sell his
domains directly, typically for £300 to £1,500 each.
Buyers of Google-related domains may find themselves in a similar predicament
to those who were taken to court by
Easyjet founder
Stelios Haji-Ioanno,
who contested that domains beginning with the word 'easy' represented an act of
cyber-squatting.
"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," said Percival.
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