I'm in a similar boat. A Norwegian name squatting company holds a bunch of last name domains not really using them for anything besides linking to their site "so everyone with that last name will be able to use it".
The problem is the they want like a dollar per month to give you one email address. I'm well aware that is not much but it's annoying that they claim to do this to "share the wealth" of that domain name with everyone with that name. The problem is they are taking money for email addresses and you can't use the domain name (or even a subdomain) for anything.
I'm more interested in having the domain for my family, I would have no problem giving subdomains and email addresses to anyone with my name contacting me.
At least according to Norwegian law (which is probably similar to International domain laws?) you do not really have a case unless you can prove you have the rights to own that domain. And since you do not really require anything but a name to own a .com you will probably have a hard time doing so :-/
"A Norwegian name squatting company holds a bunch of last name domains not really using them for anything besides linking to their site "so everyone with that last name will be able to use it".
The problem is the they want like a dollar per month to give you one email address. "
That's a perfectly reasonably business model. Renting email addresses is quite clearly "using" a domain. It might not be a hackernews/startup-web-business, but they've thought of a way to try and make a living and registered the domain first - what makes you think you have any sort of claim to "have rights to own taht domain" than they do?
Yeah I am aware it's a perfectly good business model. But this specific type of domain squatting is incredibly annoying. I couldn't find any information on their website now but they were charging a lot more for just being able to point a sub-domain somewhere.
I'm sure I would have found the idea clever if I had thought of it first but the wording on their site makes it seem like they are trying to do people a good service when it seems their sole purpose is to make money (which is understandable).
If this is the company I think it is, then they took my last name as well. They're legitimately using it, even if you may not like the use. I got around it by using the .me extension instead. You can always pick one of those others instead of .com.
Yeah I just own a few other domains for email instead.
Another problem for me is that a huge international (dutch originally) rubber company happens to share my last name with me. The .org/.net domains and a few others were free for a long time but I never thought of registering them which is sad as they recently did.
The problem is the they want like a dollar per month to give you one email address. I'm well aware that is not much but it's annoying that they claim to do this to "share the wealth" of that domain name with everyone with that name. The problem is they are taking money for email addresses and you can't use the domain name (or even a subdomain) for anything.
I'm more interested in having the domain for my family, I would have no problem giving subdomains and email addresses to anyone with my name contacting me.
At least according to Norwegian law (which is probably similar to International domain laws?) you do not really have a case unless you can prove you have the rights to own that domain. And since you do not really require anything but a name to own a .com you will probably have a hard time doing so :-/