Istheshit gets a com tld plus the discovery of a shady businessmodel
Recently Bytelove AB (who runs istheshit.net) aquired istheshit.com through snapback. Just after the auction started we got this interesting e-mail:
Hello, We acquired the domain istheshit.com recently. It is now available at the price of EUR 2500. If you are interested in it, please let us know before 6:00 pm, Sunday, Feb 24, 2008 CET. After that, this domain may not be available anymore. About the transition: The transition of domain and payment can be finished through a trusted third-party escrow service like sedo.com, afternic.com, etc, so you don't have to worry about the trust problems. If you don't get the domain, we will not get paid. NOTE: If the name is bought by other company or person, it may never be available again. Best regards, Xxx Xxxxx
I’d assume this is some sort of automated or semiautomated process where the company checks all domains about to expire and the ones that has good traffic on another TLD they bid on. Must work seriously well. Unfortunately if you make a living this way you are a parasite.
We ended up paying around EUR300 for the domain in the snapback auction.