A cybersquatter who snatches up web domains for potential presidential tickets has secured a major payday by selling the HarrisWalz.com domain for $15,000.
The domain was purchased four years ago by Jeremy Green Eche, alongside 14 other Harris-related domains, in anticipation of the current Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris running for president in the future.
Harris has recently selected Tim Walz as her vice-presidential nominee, with an anonymous buyer snatching up the domain shortly after.
Cybersquatting buying spree
Eche’s day job is as a trademark attorney, but he also has a domain name marketplace where people can buy and sell domain names and trademarks, where he is known as a domain investor.
“I also freely call myself a domain squatter or a cybersquatter. It’s a pejorative term, but I don’t mind using it because it’s still accurate,” he said, speaking to NPR.
This isn’t the first time Eche has bought a winning domain with his ClintonKaine.com domain selling in 2016 for $15,000 as well. He initially wanted to sell the domain directly to the Clinton campaign for around the $10,000 mark, but was only offered $2,000. The $15,000 offer came from an anonymous buyer, which eventually turned out to be the Trump campaign, who used the site to post anti-Clinton messaging.
Eche spends about $10 per domain, and pays to renew them yearly in the hopes that his predictions for presidential tickets are correct, and so far it is paying off.
Apparently, the buyer of the HarrisWalz.com domain is a Harris supporter who didn’t want a repeat of the 2016 domain fiasco.
“I feel a little bit like someone who went to the Olympics eight years ago and did well and then missed out on it in Tokyo and then came back and got a gold medal again. I feel like the GOAT of this very, very small niche of cybersquatting,” Eche said.
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benedict.collins@futurenet.com (Benedict Collins)
