This domain was lost in 2005 but has recently been re-acquired
What happened?
A planned relocation from one host to another was hijacked. I planned top end my registration at one host by allowing the domain name to expire, then register that domain at the new host. In the mean time someone purchased the domain from under me. This is known as "Domain Drop Catching" or "Domain Sniping". It only took them moments to do from the point it was fully unregistered.
Was it illegal? No - not technically, but what happened next was either illegal or at least unethical. The new owner of the domain created a site to LOOK like it was mine, listing my company name and products. These links only lead to advertising, where they got paid per click. Meanwhile they obfuscated their contact details so that no who-is search would provide any accurate contact details.
The practice of taking up a domain name without any intention to use it for any products or services is known as Domain Parking, and is STRONGLY frowned upon. The terms for taking a domain for this purpose is variously known as Domaining, Cybersquatting, and Domaineering. There are web sites set up to name and same these domains, and until recently this domain was on those lists. Check out
here and
here for more details on the practice.
Actions taken to contact or dispute the domain name purchase where to no avail. I would have needed a large international legal team to wade through the paper work.
In the end they must have decided that it was no longer worth their while and they failed to renew. I was waiting for this for the past 4 years. So this time I did the quick snatch and retrieved my domain! If you get into a similar situation, keep in mind that may others also want your domain, so you may need to follow some of the tactics that Drop Catchers use themselves. More information about Drop Catching can be found
here. Also - there are several web pages that list out recently dropped domains - they are worth checking out if you don't want to pay a premium to get your domain back.
It's a shame that someone sought to profit by advertising on my domain, but in a way it's lucky because they no longer needed the domain once they stopped getting revenue.
What have I been up to since?
In the mean time I undertook an MBA and moved into C# and ERP programming. I did an honours component to the MBA, which took up a lot of time, and I'm only getting back into development again now.
The MBA lead me down the track of the Graduate Management Association, and after a number of years as the Queensland Chapter President and Executive Committee member, I'm now the National President.
What now?
I have plans for this web site to offer a large amount of free content as well as products that are in the pipe lines. I'm putting this page up just to let people know I'm back, and I'll get the site developed over the next couple of months.
But what about Palm/Satellite Forms offerings?
I still have the last builds for these products (in Palm OS 5 as well as 3.x versions), and I'm happy to sell new licences or supply the latest versions, but I have no plans to do further Palm development at this point in time. I'll be setting pages for this up soon.