Domain acquisition

[Jurgen Pletinckx]

| On Mon, 2009-12-14 at 08:52 -0800, Ask Bjørn Hansen wrote:
| > > But what is the etiquette in these situations? I'd rather not reveal
| to them
| > > to what extent my friend is interested in the domains. To hide that I
| have
| > > to go through aliases or proxies. Which feels just a bit sordid,
| somehow...
| >
| > 1) Offer more money.  No reason to reveal who the real buyer is or what
| the domain is for.
| >
| > 2) Consider if the recipient is actually getting your message (assuming
| they're not responding).  There was an unused domain we wanted where we
| offered $1000 (or something like that) but never got a response.   Some
| time later the domain expired and we could get it for $70 or some such
| from the registrar that controlled the almost-deleted domain.
| 
| 
| There is also the possibility that they know that replying to any
| expressions of interest at all may result in the an increased risk of
| the domain being snatched through whatever systems the registry has in
| place to deal with abusive registrations (a process that can be and is
| abused to steal domain registrations).

Hm. But that really only holds for domains you're actually using, or have
plans for, right? Can I actually find out which other domains the
proprietors hold? A reverse whois, so to say.

As to the money question - I hadn't offered any yet. These appear to be
prime properties: 4-letter words, pronounceable and recognizable, and yet
not currently used. 

I'm not sure of the going rates, and I wouldn't want to hazard my chances by
over- or underbidding. We assume we'll be paying through the nose, though.