Guy Fawkes contemplating his next article for Techcrunch

Date: 4 November 2009 and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch decides to light up the domain industry and set the fireworks off by lighting the blue touchpaper under the domain industry.

I stay away from most sites to do with domain names and steer clear of all domain forums for most of the time, simply because there is so much misunderstanding concerning the domain space.

Accusations of cyber squatting are always bound to bring out the best and the worst in people – and having been an integral part of the domain space in his position at the helm of Pool.com, Michael Arrington knows only too well that a nice controversial post will set the fires burning in the bellies of many a domainer. Just in time for Bonfire night in the UK.

Maybe it was a slow week for technical news or something, or could it be that Techcrunch has an in-built dislike of domainers.

The belief seems to be that domainers don’t work for a living and make easy money. The industry is not quite “Silicon Valley”, yet a number of individuals make more money than some of the execs there.

The storydescribes shill bidding and insider dealing at domain auction site, SnapNames, part of Oversee.net, a company who in my opinon, incorrectly believes it owns the domain industry.

I have no love for Oversee. Quite the opposite in fact, so it was nice to see them exposed for what they are.

My only problem with the TechCrunch piece is that Arrington refers to all domainers as domain squatters, something that is pretty offensive to most in the industry.

The rest of it, concerning the insider dealing is welcome – but it’s hardly a surprise is it? I bet there aren’t many auctions of any description, anywhere in the world, where insider trading and shill bidding doesn’t go on.

Our governments and financial services industries are at it and I suspect, so are many others. Cheating is not the sole preserve of the domain industry.

How disappointing then, that the comments left on the article quickly deteriorated into personal attacks.

A few individuals on the article thread bring domainers into even more disrepute and wear their ignorance of business and behaviour almost as a badge of honour.

I guess all industries have their bad losers too.

PS – I am not a domain squatter.