Here’s an e-mail I received today:

Dear Jay MakerBlock,

Our registrar is in the process of acquiring makerblocks.com. We are sending this email to everyone who might benefit from owning this domain.
If you are interested in buying makerblocks.com you can make an offer here http://ekodeliver.com/527749pogomu

After successful acquisition of the domain we will contact the person with the highest offer.

Thank you for your time,
Ekodomains Team
234 Hudson Ave
Albany, NY 12210

When I registered MakerBlock.com I also registered MakerBlocks.com.  I like this domain name better, so I kept it.  I didn’t have an interest in keeping the other, so I let it go.  Now some internet troll wants it?  Pssh.  See, the funny thing about domain names is that they rely on the “bigger fool” theory of monetization.  They’re hoping that someone will put a higher value on the domain name they’re sitting on than the amount they paid for it, in effect banking on a bigger fool to come along and take it off their hands.

“We are sending this email to everyone who might benefit from owning this domain.”  Seriously?  There’s a list of people you think might be interested in my old domain name?  Pssh.  Okay.  If you guys really do have such a marketing list, I say shoot me an e-mail ’cause I’ve got a great idea.  I’ve got all sorts of other junk I’m not using.  Apparently you’ve found a population of people who really like the crap I throw away.  I say let’s work together and we’ll both make money off of them!

What’s up with your website any how?  The “search for domain names” doesn’t work for anything at all.  Totally available names are not listed as available.  It doesn’t even work for MakerBlocks.com.  It doesn’t work for giggleygagglewibbleywobbleytimeywimey.com.  Seriously guys, is this your very best effort at a business model?  Honestly, it looks like you’re just e-mailing newly expired domains in the hopes that someone will want to pay you more than the registration cost.  Ah!  I see your silly tricks now!  <Thank you view-source!>  You want people to start typing in a domain name because all your system does is populate the search box with a list of the domains you already own!  How droll!  You know, now that I look at your system I don’t think it would take very much at all to build a scraper to pull out your entire list of domains.

“After successful acquisition of the domain we will contact the person with the highest offer.”  Really?  You want to hold something, of dubious value, hostage when you don’t even have it yet?  I’ve got news for you – I just let the name expire.  I could go back and get it if I really wanted.  Seriously, that’s the one of the least friendly e-mails you guys could have sent.

I have a counter proposal for you, Ekodeliver aka Ekodomains aka domain name squatter and domain name troll.  You hold on to MakerBlocks.com and try to find someone willing to pay more than $10 a year for the name.  Go on now, just try!

Heck, if anything, I’ve actually damaged the domain names MakerBlock.com and MakerBlocks.com by continuously posting a stream of nonsense.

The only thing funnier than trying to sell me something I don’t want is having shelled out your own cash in the hopes of selling it back to me.  That’s like dumpster diving at my place and then showing up on my doorstep to ask me if I want to buy some used kitty litter.  “Yeah, um, NO.”

I’ll leave it with this – get the heck out of my dumpster and stop e-mailing me.