I promised to let you all in on my most embarrasing experience of this year (so far) …
The loss of my domain name …peterdehaas(.com)
I will give you the whole runthrough once I have tried every angle and I am still in the middle of this. One thing is for sure I think, I will not get this domain name back at any reasonable price.
The broker who has bought the domain has declared it his "featured and most valuable domain currently" and the domain is now offered for the price of $20.000
 "Domains4salepeterdehaas")
http://www.domains-4-sale.biz/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=2
As I am totally not up to speed on what determines the actual value of a domain I do understand one thing very clear. The value is based on my personal effort of blogging for over 2 years and the fact that the domain name is intertwined with links across the blogosphere. Although the current owner / broker rightfully bought the domain, I have a hard time believing that exploiting its "value" in this way is good ethical business practice.
More to follow on this. Meanwhile any advise in this area is much appreciated …
That site operator is playing games with you. If you look at the price of other domains he is offering, this one is way out of proportion.
@Richard,
The is indeed the case. I have requested for a reasonable price considering I use the domain for personal objectives rather than commercial, etc. Have had no response yet.
Peter,
You would seem to have a strong case to go to ICAAN with for arbitration. The person selling the domain has no vested interest in it except for its sale, and it is your name. It is not a cheap process but maybe MS will foot the bill for you?:-)
Christopher,
Thanks for this tip. I will certainly look into this.
Meanhwile I am looking into how to stop the current “owner”of the domain from using my content. If you go to peterdehaas.com you’ll see some left over content on there which basicly creates the wrong impression if nothing else …
Ouch, that’s a tough one. ICANN is very vague about its policy on “owning” the rights to your own name. Per this FAQ:
http://www.internic.net/faqs/udrp.html
they say that the URDP does NOT apply to personal names, however it does cover “bad faith registrations”, which this certainly is.
Good luck with it, if you decide to go after the guy who took your domain. That very nearly happened to me at the end of last month, so I know it’s something that can sneak up on you…
– Julian
@ Julian,
I will study the ICANN stuff this weekend to figure out what my options are there.
@ Christopher
Thanks for the Tom Cruise bit, I needed that 🙂
Well Tom Cruise just won his domain name back, and we all know that Peter is a hell of a lot sexier than old Tom! (and we to have somebody to beat up on occasionally):-):
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,19580,00.html
[…] heb ik pogingen gedaan hem terug te kopen. 3 dagen later stond mijn domeinnaam te koop voor $20.000 en op 11 september 2006 stond ie nog steeds te koop met inmiddels 25% […]