Domain Squatters

For those of you that don't know, here's a quick overview on how domains work:

You never "own" a domain, it is just "rented" from one of the domain companies. You pay a (usually) annual fee to keep using that domain. Even mighty Google need to pay someone $9.95 a year to be allowed to use the domain google.com - if you don't pay, the domain comes up for grabs again for someone else to use.

There's more to it, but that's the bit that's important for this post. </backstory>

I used to run a number of old domains for various things but after getting married I had more important things to spend my money on, so I dropped them. Today I went and had a look at some of them, just for giggles. Most of them, like my old Tsytomd persona domain are simply 404'd. No surprises there.

What I did like was that my old story domain loneverse.com has a squatter on it, and they have my old domain for sale - for US$799. It's a bargain, I'd be mad not to buy it!

Jokes aside, it'd be nice to get my old domain back and be able to use it, but I don't need it that badly. Plus I can always think of another name if I wanted to set up a separate domain for it. But it is kinda nice to know that one of my domains was worth something. :o)