A cybersquatter who hijacks web domains for potential presidential candidates has scored a handsome payday by selling the domain HarrisWalz.com for $15,000.
The domain was purchased four years ago by Jeremy Green Eche, along with 14 other Harris-related domains, in anticipation of current Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris running for president in the future.
Harris recently chose Tim Walz as her vice presidential candidate and shortly afterward an anonymous buyer acquired the domain.
Cybersquatting shopping spree
Eche's day job is as a trademark attorney, but he also runs 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 National Public Radio.
This is not the first time Eche has bought a winning domain. In 2016, he sold his ClintonKaine.com domain for $15,000. He initially wanted to sell the domain directly to the Clinton campaign for about $10,000, but was only offered $2,000. The $15,000 offer came from an anonymous buyer, who eventually turned out to be the Trump campaign, which used the site to post anti-Clinton messages.
Eche spends about $10 per domain and pays to renew them annually in the hopes that his predictions about presidential candidates will be correct, and so far it's paying off.
The buyer of the HarrisWalz.com domain is reportedly a Harris supporter who did not 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, but then didn’t make it in Tokyo and then came back and got a gold medal again. I feel like the best of all time in this very, very small niche of cybersquatting,” Eche said.
