NEW YORK, NY – Nat Cohen, an Internet entrepreneur who began his 20+ year journey in domain investing back in 1997, sat with popular domain name forum NamePros.com in a video interview conducted by domaining community speaker and moderator Braden Pollack which took place at the industry’s largest event, NamesCon in Las Vegas this past January. Worth mentioning, over 1,400 people from all around the globe gathered at this year’s event. In the interview, Nat goes into great detail on his background, how he began in the business of domains, moving on to developing his domains, and his dedicated involvement on the Board of Directors for the ICA, the Internet Commerce Association.
Check out the video interview below.
Cohen, who according to his candid interview, began investing in domain names simply by chance while trying to figure out how to launch a website, saw huge value. Back then, with his own strategic insight I might add, Nat recognized both the significant value of Internet domain addresses to come – and through his own experiences dealing with UDRP proceedings, some of which where he was, unfortunately, on the losing end-of, also saw the importance of the actual control and ‘ownership’ of these word-based addresses including the many pitfalls which can literally strip you of that ownership, such as what he refers to as underlying ‘key issues’ of the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Dispute Policy, such as Trademark infringement largely determined through attempting to identify buyer ‘intent’.
The UDRP process itself, which is overseen by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a focal point of the ICA this year as it vigorously works towards its UDRP Reform Policy Platform 2018. Super interesting was the part where Nat discusses the murky ‘black-box’ type process where UDRP panelists are suspectedly chosen, who often may have legal backgrounds if that, but based on some of the decisions we have seen as of late, the strong probability that they maintain what he referred to as ‘obviously’ little to ‘no IP background’ – which is a fundamental flaw in the system, my words – not his.
How can you assign an administrator of domain name rights when they have little to no experience and background in how domains actually work and how they are, in common practice, valued, sold or exchanged, especially from the point of view and prospective of domain name buyers and investors who are most often the ‘respondents’ in these cases and equally often spend the equivalent of a home mortgage on a name? We’re talking about a transfer of ownership of property here.
The video also discusses how best to utilize all of the information out there for those Interested in getting involved in the business of domain names, attendance at this years domain conference and the assistance of how NamePros.com, News aggregator Domaining.com and other leading sites bring all of this information together, where people are passionately sharing with newcomers everything they have learned about domain names.
The domaining community certainly is a very passionate group of people who most of which are involved because its something they really want to do and is a passion, not just a career. Nat also includes some information on getting involved in the ICA and how to get more information at their nifty new URL http://ica.domains including information on becoming a member and advocate for its work.
The video was sponsored by Uniregistry.
Leave a Reply