Hundreds of domain names registered as Hurricane Irene approached the east coast.
Whenever there’s a notable natural disaster or event, some people try to cash in with domain names.
With Hurricane Irene making waves in the news (sorry) over the weekend, people started snapping up related domain names.
TasteReports.com shows 196 domain names including the keyword “hurricane” were registered last Friday and Saturday alone. To be sure, not all of them had to do with Hurricane Irene. But plenty of them did, ranging from NJhurricaneirene.com to HurricaneIreneRelief2011.com to HurricaneIreneDonations.com.
And, following the typical pattern we’ve seen after past events, some of these domain names end up on eBay.
Right now opportunists are offering DonateHurricaneIrene.com for $499 (“perfect domain name for non-profit organizations who want to collect donations to help people affected by this disaster”) and IreneNews.com for just $50.
Sigh.
mike says
on days like these, the registrar wins
Steve Jones says
Registrars/registries win, our industry as a whole loses because people loop respectable domainers in with these bad apples.