Are They Watching YOUR Blog?

When checking my email I don’t normally check my Spam folder with great detail. I have enough confidence in Google that if something is in the Spam folder, it’s usually junk 99.9% of the time. However, while checking my folder this past week I found an interesting email SCREAMING my blog name in the subject line. Curiosity got the better of me and I had to take a look. I was amused. I wondered if it was a joke. Then I felt as if I needed to “warn the masses”, so to speak.

This email was from a company that I won’t give the decency of a link to on my blog. It was an email to inform me that if I wanted to purchase the dot com version of my domain name, that it was for sale. Because the dot com was the most recognizable web address on the internet. It sounded more official. It was more professional. Reasons after reasons of why I HAD to have the dot com behind my domain name instead of dot net, which is what I use.

To backtrack, I made a conscious decision about my domain name. I knew the dot com version was available, but I chose to go with readwritemom.com I knew that it was entirely possible that someone could buy the dot com version of Mommy Cracked and if I wanted to prevent that all I had to do was buy it. I did not, and was and still am ok with that decision.

And that email I got? It wanted to offer me the chance to buy the dot com version of Mommy Cracked for the low, low price of $997. Apparently they snapped it up and felt like $997 would be a bargain to me. *snort*

TO BE CLEAR: What this company did is NOT illegal in any way. Individuals and companies buy and sell domain names every single day. There’s money to be made there. HOWEVER, it has raised a red flag in my head that perhaps these companies and/or individuals are now out trolling the blogosphere for unsuspecting bloggers, snapping up their blog names in domain form and making them panic because they no longer have the option of having their blog name in a dot com or dot net form unless they are willing to fork over big bucks. Perhaps I may be a little paranoid, but I find it uncanny that they knew how to contact me (hmm…been casing out the blog, have we?) and that I received that email with such an obscene buying price.

So, all paranoia aside, let me encourage you to purchase your domain name for your blog if that is something you plan to do, and especially if you have a business tied to that blog. Also? If it irks you that someone might be able to purchase the dot com, dot net, or dot biz version of your blog name, buy them all. This is not a groundbreaking piece of advice, but just a reminder and a warning to those who are new to blogging.