How do you describe someone who tries to profit off the massacre of twenty children?
It’s a fact. People register domains related to big news stories. They sometimes park them and sometimes try to sell them.
For example, Clint Eastwood’s famous empty chair.
Surely, however, people wouldn’t be so vile as to try to profit off of domain names related to last week’s mass shooting in Sandy Hook.
Right?
Wrong.
Consider this Houston man who registered SandyHookMovie.com and wants at least $200 for it on Go Daddy Auctions.
Noel from Pennsylvania will sell you SandyHookMassacre.com or SandyHookShooting.com for $575 each.
Chris from Glastonbury, Connecticut (just an hour away from Newtown) wants to sell you sandyhookctmassacre.com.
Louis from California is offering sandyhookelementaryshooting.com and sandyhookmassshooting.com for sale.
What could have possibly been going through these people’s minds when they registered these domains?
David says
Money is good for them and meantime puts them into a hell.
Jason says
It simply goes to short their demeanor and characters of these people. Truly pathetic in my most humble opinion and surely others will agree.
Perhaps they would have a different perspective if their child/children were gunned down in the near future at school, seeing a movie or shopping at a mall. Ignorance is bliss.
I suppose from a business standpoint perhaps they are so wildly successfully domain investors that they were looking for last minute tax write-offs/expenses.
Either way, very tasteless indeed.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Jason – fortunately these aren’t really “domain investors” by my definition. Most have only a handful of domains. And if they’re registering this type of domain, they definitely aren’t successful.
Lori says
They have the right to profit off these domains just like CNN has the right to sell spots between segments about these events. I never understood the problem here. No one is forcing you to buy any of these domains, it’s choice.
Jason says
@ Andrew – I know. It’s simply a new-breed of ambulance chasers looking to benefit from trending search results.
I happened to notice RyanLanza.com was available, then was hand-regged minutes thereafter. Once again, a tasteless registration looking to benefit from what the initial news reports deemed, a murderer.
I was in the domain business since 2000 and seen the same events occur minutes after 9/11 occurred.
Give it a couple of days they will have the domains plastered on eBay with $1,000,000 prices and old-school media will pickup on the story.
I completely agree with your stance, entirely.
Jason says
@ Andrew
Solid research and reporting (as usual).
Ron says
Any idiot can register a domain, takes less than $10, and any sort of electronic payment method. They are not domainers, but simply opportunist, who are treading on tragedy. In such a big world, there will always be fools like this, just the way it goes.
Jason says
@ Lori
Does that make it ethical or right? People also have a choice to go on shooting sprees at the mall, movies, schools, etc. Does that mean everyone does it? Of course not.
People choose not to conduct such activity because they know better. Something called common sense.
So Lori, what domain did you register regarding CT or Sandy Hook? =)
Robin says
The pathetic and disturbing thing is that these murders keep on occurring. We live in a violent society that has a low value for life unless it directly affects us. I am as deeply disturbed by bomb that kills 20 people in a far off country that is attributed to collateral damage as a shooting in a local community.
As to the people who register names related to these tragedies…NEWS is a hugely profitable business and if CNN had registered the name first to disseminate the story would we feel the same. A movie will probably be made and people will be paid for making it. This society we live in consumes violence in massive quantities, look at video games,Tv shows,movies literature. If guns made us safe the US would be the safest country on the planet.
todd says
Many were registered in com net org etc… as shown below but I think the ones that everyone should keep an eye on is the donation websites or funds. Some may be legit which is great but others may be fraud and I think we should keep an eye on that.
sandyhookdonation. com net org
sandyhookdonations. com net org
sandyhookelementary. com net org us
sandyhookelementaryfund. org
sandyhookelementaryschool. com net org
sandyhookelementaryschoolmassacre. org
sandyhookelementaryschoolshooting. com
sandyhookelementaryschooltragedy. org
sandyhookelementaryshooting. com
sandyhookelementaryshootingdonations. org
sandyhookelementarytragedy. org
sandyhookelementaryvictims. com
sandyhookfoundation. com org
sandyhookfund. com net org
sandyhookgunbill. com
sandyhookgunlaw. com net org info
sandyhookmassshooting. com
sandyhookmemorialfund. com
sandyhookmemorial. com org
sandyhookrelieffund. com org
sandyhookscholarshipfund. org
sandyhookschool. com org
sandyhookschoolmassacre. com
sandyhookschoolshooting. com
sandyhookschooltragedy. com
sandyhookshooting. com net org info
sandyhookschoolmemorial. com org
sandyhookstory. com
sandyhooktragedy. com info
sandyhookvictimmemorial. com
sandyhookvictims. com net info us
sandyhookvictimsfund. com org
Alan says
@Lori
You are right, you can reg anything you want,
but wouldn’t it be more “ethical” to at least
wait until these kids are buried before you put those names up for sale?
I mean we are talking about “common” decency
here………
Nic says
@Lori
“They have the right to profit off these domains just like CNN has the right to sell spots between segments about these events.”
Very. Good. Point. Touche.
It would have been more “ethical” (@Alan) to not interview the kids immediately (what were *they* thinking?), and it would have been more ethical to not take pictures of distraught kids, which were sold and are running on the front pages of papers all around the world.
Domainer Extraordinaire says
I was happy to see the domainer that regged RyanLanza.com got the wrong name and he couldn’t get AdamLanza.com because it was taken years before.
ChuckWagen says
Product of a society that is hellbent on lowering the bar, just when you thought it could be lowered no more.
Rob says
@ todd: “some may be legit”
rubbish. who has the right to use those names for fundraising? nobody. even if it is a (so called) charity that registered one/more of them, it is purely seeing an opportunity to get more money. that’s it. these charities so cleverly disguise themselves as being caring but this would show that they jump on any chance, moral or not, to get more money. i’m sure many of them are rubbing their hands with joy at all the generous people who really do care but don’t really understand that they are just being conned.
these registrants/charities prove that many people have no moral compass whatsoever – they dont have the ability to think what affect their profiteering may have on people who have lost a loved one.
sometimes i feel that humans should be wiped out and then let evolution create a better creature.
Alan says
Some people (Nic,Lori) just don’t get it………No amount of reasoning will ever suffice.
Nic says
@Alan
I get it. The post is a good one.
I just think the registrants at issue are probably young and silly and naive. (Is anyone really going to buy those names??)
The media on the other hand are unscrupulous parasites with no restraint, ie Lori makes a good point.
jim mott says
But it’s OK to own every sick porno name
you can think of? I think you have a double standard.
Should the guy who owns Hitler.com let it expire because Hitler killed millions of people. This type of holyer than though stuff
has no place in the domain industry.
You written much about sex.com? It’s not exactly high brow material they got there.
John Berryhill says
Meanwhile, this blog makes money selling advertising space on a page where we can all discuss the ethics of making money from tragedy. IHMO, people who do these sorts of things shouldn’t receive frenzied media attention in the first place, since attention-getting is a motivator for sociopaths.
John Berryhill says
To be precise, I count nine click-through advertisements on this “low life scum seeking to profit” page.
Andrew Allemann says
Whenever I write about how people are making money off of tragedy, someone comes along and point out that the article gets some traffic, and I sell ads.
But I expect something wittier from John Berryhill.
John Berryhill says
Not trying to be witty. Just pointing out the irony. The motive of any commercial media is to increase readership/viewership, usually for the purpose of selling advertising. There are people who register domain names for reasons that may range from utterly tasteless to charitable. For example, there are certain domain names which are registered by some people and organizations solely for the purpose of preventing them from being registered by others. I’m aware of a number of racially insensitive domain names, as is the Hebrew “tetragrammaton” in several TLDs, registered for the specific purpose of preventing others from using them.
But as you point out, in the wake of every awful event, various people register domain names, and quite possibly for crass reasons. Maybe they have the notion that at a later point a documentary film maker or author may want to buy them. Of course, such a documentary film maker or author is also in the business of making money by doing what they do as well.
But, as certain as these types of “news relevant” names are registered. And as reprehensible as the motives may be. Each and every time, you run a story pointing it out, and giving it attention. At what point does it cease to be “news” that people do this sort of thing. It reminds me of those odious “funeral protestors” who glom onto every horrific event, who do so for the media attention they are given by the act of doing it.
We may never understand the behavior of others, but it’s worth trying to get a handle on our own.
Andrew Allemann says
I really wish there were a way to turn off all my ads for this one article, but I’m not that smart.
In any event, I only called attention to the people that listed their domains for sale. My hope was a little public shaming, but maybe I’m giving myself too much credit to assume they’ll see this and realize how stupid they are.
Kim Krasniqi says
I regularly visit your blog and I love it. Totally agree with you it is sickening to see people trying to profit from such a tragic event. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Connecticut.
John Berryhill says
@Andrew. There is always the “no such thing as bad publicity crowd.” Public shaming has the opposite effect on them. If you want to be famous, go do something reprehensible. There are people who make careers out of that principle.
Andrew Allemann says
My sense of these people is they just saw a chance to make what they thought was a quick buck. They probably weren’t thinking very much about it. If their friends and family knew they’d be ashamed.
But perhaps I give humanity too much faith.
Mike says
I was surprised that sandyhookschool.com was avail yesterday, so I regged it before someone that wants to make money on it does, my plan is to hand it over to The Newtown Public School District if they want it.
Domainer Extraordinaire says
A domainer regged at least one of the murdered kids’ names .com and CNN interviewed the father of one he regged. The father said they filed a complaint with Godaddy and got it back.
So rather than appreciate this domainer for voluntarily handing over the name, he was described with numerous negative adjectives.
Godaddy was made out to be the hero.
andrew says
The same thing going through the minds of the producers of 9/11 themed movies. These are not all neccesarily reg’d in bad faith. What if someone wanted to make a tribute site? Theres an entire market of people buying and selling murder-memorabilia. Would I have reg’d these names? Of course not. Am I surprised people did? Of course not.