Shortly after Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, internet users were surprised to see that the domain name “HarrisWalz.com” was already in use, even though it had been purchased four years ago.
A lawyer bought HarrisWalz.com for about $9 in 2020 and has now made $15,000 in profits using an online technique called domain investing.
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Domain investors, or cybersquatters, are people who buy domains under someone else’s name or brand in the hope of buying them back at a higher price than the purchase price.
Trademark lawyer Jeremy Green Etche, 36, has been cybersquatting since 2011 after working as a sign seller during college and deciding he wanted to preserve valuable names in other ways by going digital.
“I’m mainly sticking to the political sphere,” Etche, who calls himself the GOAT of cybersquatting, told the U.S. Sun on Wednesday.
Harris, then a California senator, purchased the domain while she was campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 2020.
“I probably got in just in time,” Etche said, adding that HarrisShapiro.com was also acquired in 2020 in anticipation of Harris selecting Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was then Pennsylvania’s attorney general, as her running mate.
“So I think it’s going to take at least four years to get this.”
This isn’t Etche’s first big break: In 2016, he cashed in on ClintonKaine.com after Hillary Clinton announced she would nominate Tim Kaine as her running mate against Donald Trump.
In that case, Etche would have purchased the domain name five years before the election.
He explained the process of choosing a name going back many years.
“I bought a couple of other domains, and in both cases, I think the first name on the domain was someone that everyone was hoping would get re-elected,” Etche said.
“You know, Hillary Clinton was sort of Obama’s heir apparent, and by the time I started buying Harris’ domains, she had already been selected as Biden’s running mate, so it was pretty clear that she was a future presidential candidate.
“The hardest thing to choose is the second name in the domain,” the cybersquatter revealed.
“In the case of Harris, I basically went through all of the senators and governors in core and battleground states and registered many of those domains in Harris’ name and in those people’s names.”
But the ClintonKaine.com acquisition didn’t turn out the way Eche expected.
As Kamala Harris picks her running mate, what happens next?
Just weeks after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, his presidential campaign is gearing up for a tumultuous week after Kamala Harris formally selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as his running mate.
The two will be campaigning together in the upcoming elections as follows:
Harris and Walz are scheduled to appear together for their first campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Tuesday, August 6.
This will be the first of seven battleground states that Harris plans to visit over five days, five of which are states that she and Biden switched to the Democrats in 2020.
These states include:
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada
This period is expected to be one of the busiest weeks for campaign-related travel during this election cycle.
Following a week-long national tour, Harris and Walz are due to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, from August 19-22.
Harris is expected to formally accept the party’s nomination and outline where she and her running mate will stand on a host of issues that affect Americans.
“In the case of Clinton Cain, I was in contact with the Clinton campaign very early on after she selected her running mate,” Etche revealed.
“I had a client who introduced me to the Clinton campaign’s digital campaign director, but he told me that the campaign didn’t have a budget and that I shouldn’t make any real pitches.”
Staff reportedly told Etche that he would probably only be able to pay $2,000 for the domains, which Etche said was less than he had invested in all of his domains.
“To be honest with you, I think I spent about $3,000 in the 2016 election,” he said.
Etche was shocked by the Clinton campaign’s refusal.
“I was a bit depressed because there were only two people who were really interested in buying it and one of them didn’t want it last time,” he said.
“I thought, ‘I did everything right and it didn’t work out. I’m not going to make any money off this, but I did.'”
Surprising Buyer
The broker contacted Etche, introduced him to an interested buyer and offered to represent him as a lawyer in the transaction for a fee, so Etche accepted the deal.
The domain was sold for $15,000 to an anonymous buyer who turned out to be the Trump campaign’s digital campaign director at the time.
“It was only after I transferred the domain that I found out who it was and the only name was Brad Parscale. Then I Googled it and found out who it was,” Etche said.
Parscale served as senior adviser for data and digital affairs during Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Etche was surprised at the identity of the buyer but is glad the money was ultimately paid.
“I don’t think that’s really going to help the Trump campaign,” he said.
“It’s not that I was happy to receive Trump money because I’m a Democrat, I was just happy to receive money that no longer belongs to the Trump campaign.”
“But I think it would have been better if Clinton had bought it and made a deal with her. I would have accepted a lower offer from the Clinton campaign.”
Sold to the highest bidder
As of Friday, the HarrisWalz.com domain had been purchased from Eche’s marketplace, but it is unclear who the buyer was.
The domain is available for anyone to purchase through the HarrisWalz.com portal, and it remains bright green because Eche and his wife were inspired by Charli XCX’s album “brat.”
Prior to the purchase, Etche said he expected the Harris campaign to purchase the land.
“Hopefully the Harris campaign will be a little smarter than the Clinton campaign and buy this domain, because I think every presidential campaign should have a budget to buy their own domain,” he said.
“If you’re paying people for advertising space, billboards and things like that, it’s a no-brainer.
“They should pay for their domain too.”
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