A forward-thinking Brooklyn millennial bought HarrisWalz.com in 2020; four years later, the self-described “cybersquatter” made $15,000 selling the domain after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her presidential running mate.
Jeremy Green Eche, a 36-year-old trademark attorney, said he goes on “purchase spree” at sites like Name.com and GoDaddy, snapping up domain names that correspond to potential political campaigns.
“That word seems fine to me, [“cybersquatting”]”Although other people who buy domain names get mad at me for saying that. They say I should use 'domain investor,'” Eche told Fox News Digital. “I'm buying these domains with politicians' names on them; I think that meets the definition of cybersquatting… but you could say that this brand, 'Harris Walz,' didn't exist until yesterday.
“It's something that someone can take you to domain mediation for,” the trademark attorney explained. “It's just that taking a domain from a cybersquatter takes so much time and costs so much money that it doesn't make sense for a presidential campaign to do it — they'd spend over $15,000 and the campaign would be over.”
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Jeremy Green Eche, 36, bought HarrisWalz.com for about $10 in 2020; he told Fox News Digital he sold it to a Harris supporter for $15,000. (Stephanie Eche)
Eche said he purchased 15 Harris-related domain names in August 2020, combining her name with “all kinds of plain white male names.” [he] “I could think about who was big at that time.”
Other combinations included Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
Each domain name costs about $10 to buy, Eche said, and he pays back the small amount each year to keep the website active.
Eche said much of it was conjecture: The Brooklyn native keeps up with politics and is a member of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
When he came up with the concept of buying political domains, Eche said, he was an autograph dealer.
“I'd like to get Obama to autograph five of his books at a time and sell them on eBay for about $500 each,” Eche said. “It occurred to me that I could do something similar with domains.”
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Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Governor Tim Walz appear together onstage during a campaign event at Girard College on August 6, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Harris ended weeks of speculation about who would be her running mate, selecting the 60-year-old Midwestern governor over other candidates. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
This is not the first time Eche has made a successful move: in 2016, Eche was the owner of ClintonKaine.com. He had also bought ClintonBooker.com and ClintonBiden.com in case the then-Democratic candidate chose Senator Cory Booker or Joe Biden as her running mate.
Eche, who before his marriage went by the name Jeremy Peter Green, said he was living off credit card debt in a basement and hoped to sell the domain name for $10,000.
When the Clinton campaign offered just $2,000, Eche said, he began featuring his Harry Potter-themed political fan fiction on the site. Eventually, he said, he sold the domain to an anonymous buyer for $15,000. That buyer ended up being a member of the Trump campaign, which used the site to post anti-Clinton news during the election.
“Honestly, I was very depressed in 2016 when the Clinton campaign didn't even make me a serious offer,” he said Tuesday, as reported by NPR. “I hope that the Harris campaign people will be a little more astute, a little more aware of things, especially now that they see what happened last time.”
On Tuesday, Eche sold HarrisWalz.com on his online marketplace to a “seemingly random person with no connection to either campaign” for $15,000, he told Fox News Digital.
“What the guy I sold it to told me is that he's a Harris supporter and he's basically buying the domain so the Trump campaign doesn't buy it like they did with ClintonKaine.com in 2016,” Eche said.
Now, Eche feels like the “best political cybersquatter in history.”
“The last few days I've had a strange feeling of déjà vu,” Eche said. “I'm going through the same thing I went through eight years ago. Doing this twice is a very nice feeling, it feels like last time it wasn't an accident.”
Eche said he will keep the other Harris-related domains he purchased in case the current vice president runs again.
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, right, and Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota and Democratic vice presidential nominee, during a campaign event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. Harris chose Walz as her running mate, recruiting him to build an electoral coalition of coastal progressives and Midwestern moderates to stop Donald Trump from winning the White House. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Not only are these domains valuable for the 2024 election, but they will also retain their value in 2028 if Harris runs that year,” Eche wrote on his online marketplace, where he is currently selling the domains. “This makes them an excellent investment.”
He said he has also purchased 10 different domain names related to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, should she run for president in the future, and that he has eyed Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth as potential running mates, and is asking $9,900 for each of those domains.
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“I also got a bunch of Walz domains,” Eche said. “Whoever is chosen as vice presidential running mate becomes a de facto presidential contender in the future.”
Eche also buys Republican-related domain names; his best bet this year, he said, was TrumpCotton.com.
“You have to buy these domains well in advance. When I was buying domains for this cycle, JD Vance was still an author. I didn't take that into account,” Eche said. “Someone probably bought it when he was running for Senate. I wish I had thought of that.”
Harris's campaign could not immediately be reached for comment.
