This post got me thinking.. for about a week, I have been thinking of of registering barbaza.com (my last name). Reading this post was enough reason to scare me into putting it off no longer. So, I went to my usual www.directNIC.com (only $15 per year - I don't know how some companies get off charging $90?!!??) and registered it...

BUT, when I did, I noticed that barbaza.tv is NOT available. Now, Barbaza is a rare last name. I only know if about 30 of us in North America. So, I went to barbaza.tv and found that a company is buying up domain names based on people's last names and then SELLING email addresses to those people. So, the probably own stephens.tv, so if your name is John Stephens, you can pay them to have [email protected]. (I am guessing at Stephens here...)

This puts a whole other twist on squatting. On one hand, it seems like they are providing a service, but on the other - they are a corporate version of a squatter...

How do you guys feel about this? I would be a little more upset if they had registered barbaza.com rather than barbaza.tv...

FWIW: I plan on setting up aliases for all my family members so they can have [email protected] or [email protected] ... (for free!)

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Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com