Lawyer buys hundreds of 'Aussie' domain names - News

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Lawyer buys hundreds of 'Aussie' domain names

October 13, 2000
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/soa/Lawyer-buys-hundreds-of-Aussie-domain-names-/0,139023165,120104842,00.htm

Correction:
Murphy owns batteredsav.com and not chikoroll.com as previously reported. Other minor clarifications have been made to the orginal version of this story.

Criminal lawyer Chris Murphy has snapped up hundreds of domain names including hallmark Australian colloquialisms such as ComeonAussie.com and nickoff.com.

"I own everything that's an expression, I went through Professor Wilks Dictionary of English Colloquialisms," Murphy told ZDNet Australia. He also owns the namesake for a particular Aussie snack food -- batteredsav.com.

Murphy claims none of the domains he owns are trademarked and that the site names are legitimate business dealings. He plans to build Web sites for each and every one. However, everything has its price.

"I'm not cybersquatting, every one of them is taken with a business intention. This business is the business of setting up Web sites," Murphy told ZDNet Australia.

Australian rock band Jebediah told ZDNet Australia today that the group was unable to set up jebediah.com as the site is occupied by a Brisbane-based domain-for-sale company.

Murphy told ZDNet Australia that he owns Bonecrusher.com, which is a rock group in the United States.

According to Murphy, he had no knowledge of the band until he received correspondence from Bonecrusher explaining that they were only a small garage band and could only afford to buy their name back for the price Murphy bought it for.

"I got on to Northerlight.com and found an article on them and they are huge. They tried to con me. I refused to let them have it," he said.

Some of Murphy's names are quite valuable, such as Australiansport.com, for which Murphy said he has been "swamped with offers".

Murphy told ZDNet Australia that he has recently sold a domain name to an overseas company for a hefty AU$20,000, but was reluctant to reveal the successful bidder's details.

The business of buying domain names started 12 to 18 months ago for Murphy when he found registered domain name services that sell dot.com names for two years at US$35. '.com' names are more viable as a registered business name is not required. "I don't think that '.com.au' names are worth it," he said.

"Melbourne IT is very expensive and they call it a license. You can't sell the name on because they still own it. And '.com.au' names have problems because they don't turn up on international searches."

Murphy has a preference for the domain registration service called Greatdomains.com where the buying and selling of domain names is encouraged. "Greatdomains.com is the new real estate of the world, you can get millions for a domain name."