The outbreak of the new coronavirus has triggered people's snapping up of related website domain names, such as coronavirus.com, and aroused investors' desire to profit from the latest global health crisis.
This has led some domain name registrars and markets to take action to limit people's abuse of new coronavirus-related terminology for profiteering.
According to DomainTools, a cyber intelligence company that tracks new coronavirus-related domain names, the number of new coronavirus-related domain names has grown to more than 68,000 this year, many of which are related to spammers and cybercriminals.
"The sales volume is truly unprecedented," said Sean McNee, director of research and development at DomainTools. "The number of bad domain names is growing exponentially, similar to the number of new coronavirus infections worldwide."
Website domain names are valuable property. Some popular domain names, such as Voice.com, have sold for $30 million. According to market research agency IBISWorld, the domain name sales industry is estimated to generate $6.4 billion in revenue in 2019.
As millions of people around the world stay at home looking for information, suppliers, and governance solutions related to the new coronavirus, domain names related to the new coronavirus and new coronavirus pneumonia have become hot items in the domain name market.
Sell Ebola domains first, then new coronavirus domains
Domain investor Elliot Silver is also the publisher of a popular domain investment blog. He analyzed the public sale of domain names related to the new coronavirus epidemic, and said that although registrations in the market are already saturated, most serious domain name investors will avoid domain names related to the epidemic.
"It always seems like someone buys a tragedy-related domain name. But overall, many of them haven't traded out. For me, it's a waste of time and money. And it may seem like There are too many negative factors. "
But it turns out that the outbreak of the new coronavirus is a too lucrative opportunity for many people.
Jon Schultz, a well-known and often-criticized investor in domain names, sold his Ebola virus website (Ebola.com) in 2014 and is now seeking to sell coronavirus.org and others 10 to 15 new coronavirus domain names.
"I tried to acquire coronavirus.com without success," Schultz said.
This domain is more attractive than .org on .com, and it is reported that its owner is the domain registrar GoPardy, which was obtained in a transaction unrelated to the current new coronavirus outbreak, which the company will currently visit The author is directed to the World Health Organization website.
Schultz said before the official name, Schultz speculated that the current outbreak could be a new coronavirus and bought coronavirus.org for a small registration fee-about $9.
When Schultz sold Ebola.com in 2014, he was attacked by national media. "It's not fun," Schultz said, referred to by the Washington Post as "illness trader" or by tech blog Gizmodo as "opportunistic human waste", "but we did in a week The domain was sold for $200,000."
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