news
14 Aug 2024
New York trademark attorney Jeremy Green Eche is a Kamala Harris supporter who hopes the current Vice President is successful in her bid for the White House this year. But that's not why he bought a number of web domains with her name in them back in 2020.
In his spare time, Eche snaps up unclaimed domain names for under $10 in hopes of eventually selling them for a hefty profit. Also called domain investing, the pastime has paid off for him over the years.
"I buy domain names that consist of combinations of two last names that I hope will end up being a major party's presidential ticket," Eche told CBS MoneyWatch.
Four years ago, Eche purchased HarrisWalz.com — an internet domain made up of Harris' last name and that of her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — for $8.99. This week, Eche sold the domain to an individual buyer, who identified himself as a Harris supporter, for $15,000.
Eche, in an interview with CBS MoneyWatch, compared the sale to "hitting the jackpot."
"I get to put whatever I want up on the website and have a ton of people look at it and usually I end up selling it," he said. The buyer of the site is not affiliated with the Harris-Walz campaign, according to Eche. Currently, visitors to HarrisWalz.com are redirected to kamalaharris.com, the candidate's official campaign page.
"He must have set up a redirect because he didn't have anything better to do with it," Eche said of the buyer. Eche did not receive an offer from the Harris campaign, he added. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch's request for comment about the domain name sale.
Eche said he owns about 60 domains, most of which are made up of the names of politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties whom he considers to be likely presidential candidates.
"I do try to do both sides, but it's a lot harder to predict the Republican ticket than the Democratic ticket these days," he said.
This isn't the first time Eche has cashed in on his hobby. In 2016, he sold Clintonkaine.com for $15,000, to an anonymous buyer through a domain broker. He later found out the purchaser worked for the Trump campaign, which used the site to post disparaging content related to his opponents. Eche said he recently bought back the domain for just under $1,000, in order to showcase his own comics.
Eche sold the HarrizWalz.com domain through Communer.com, his own startup, where he set the sale price at $15,000. He said he spent roughly $600 on domain names related to the current election cycle.
He dabbles in investing in corporate domain names, too, including web addresses for names of companies that he might one day want to run. "But I don't really invest in nonpolitical domains," he said.
Instead, his sights remain focused on potential future presidential campaigns. He currently maintains "a bunch of Gretchen Whitmer domains, Walz domains and Nikki Haley domains."
When asked if he was disappointed that the Harris campaign didn't bite, Eche said he would've preferred to sell it to her.
"Every presidential campaign should allocate some of their billion-dollar budget toward securing their matching domain name, but I wasn't going to get my hopes up," he told CBS MoneyWatch.