Tragic events that involve human loss, such as the Boston marathon bombing, attract certain types of domain registrants like bees to honey.
Some of them do it to benefit financially, by attempting to hold the domain until a book or a movie comes out.
Others believe that they’d profit from a quick flip, as if people would love to buy ‘bloodied domains’. They shamelessly promote those domains on various domain venues, such as forums, newsletters or auction places such as eBay.
Another type of ‘disaster domain’ registrant is the imaginary good-doer.
They somehow perceive that they are either protecting the cause by safekeeping domains that would somehow be picked up, or domains that could be turned over to a higher authority of ownership, such as the Red Cross etc. The question is, why don’t they hand these domains over right away to the authorities, the FBI, or the official relief centers but keep them under ‘wraps’ for a supposed ‘right moment’? Is there a psychological obsession to becoming a ‘gatekeeper’ of disaster domains and never actually do anything with them?
The truth is, that out of disasters, nothing good comes out with regards to domain registrations. These domains that were supposedly registered to prevent ‘malicious owners’ will eventually be left to expire, down the road. Domain scavengers will pick those up on the drop, in the hopes of some residual traffic, and the circle will continue.
Just like the ‘necrophiliac domainers’ – those that register the names of deceased persons – the reasoning behind disaster domain registrations is flawed and against the relief sought for the disaster.
There are many ways to lessening the impact of a disaster, and land-grabbing virtual real estate is not one of them.
