Self-proclaimed ‘cybersquatting Goat’ who sold harriswalz.com for $15k warns Kamala not to make Hillary Clinton’s error
INTERNET users were surprised to find the domain name HarrisWalz.com already in use immediately after Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday - but it was bought four years ago.
A lawyer bought HarrisWalz.com for about $9 in 2020 and is now cashing in on a $15,000 payday thanks to an online practice called domain investing.
Domain investors, or cybersquatters, are people who buy a domain with someone else's name or brand in the hopes that they'll buy it back for more than it was originally purchased.
Trademark attorney Jeremy Green Eche, 36, has been cybersquatting since 2011 after his autograph dealing job in college inspired him to hold on to valuable names in other ways by going digital.
“I pretty much stick to political domains," Eche, who has called himself the cybersquatting GOAT, told The U.S. Sun on Wednesday.
He bought the domain when Harris, a California senator at the time, campaigned for the Democratic nomination in 2020.
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“I probably just barely got it in time, too," Eche said, adding that HarrisShapiro.com was also bought in 2020 in anticipation of Harris choosing Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who was the state's attorney general at the time, as her VP pick.
"So I guess you need at least four years lead time to grab one of these."
This isn't Eche's first big break. In 2016, he cashed in on ClintonKaine.com after Hillary Clinton announced Tim Kaine as her vice president pick in the race against Donald Trump.
In that case, Eche had bought the domain name five years before the election.
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He explained his process for picking the names years in advance.
“I’ve bought some more domains, but in both of these situations, the first name in the domain was somebody I think everybody expected to run again," Eche said.
“You know, Hillary Clinton was kind of the heir to the nomination after Obama, and then Harris had already been picked as Biden’s running mate when I started buying Harris’ domain, so she was an obvious future candidate for president.
"The harder thing to pick is the second name in the domain," the cybersquatter revealed.
"For Harris, I just went through basically every senator and governor from heartland states and swing states and registered a lot of those domains with Harris’ name plus those people’s names."
However, the ClintonKaine.com purchase went differently than Eche expected.
What's next as Kamala Harris picks running mate
Kamala Harris' presidential campaign is preparing for a whirlwind week after she officially named Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate - just weeks after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
Here's what's next for the duo as they hit the campaign trail together:
Both Harris and Walz will appear for their first campaign rally together in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, August 6.
It will be the first of seven swing states Harris is expected to travel to over five days - five of which she and Biden flipped blue in 2020.
These states include:
- Pennsylvania
- Wisconsin
- Michigan
- Georgia
- Arizona
- North Carolina
- Nevada
The stretch is set to be one of the heaviest weeks of campaign-related travel this election cycle.
After her week-long tour around the country, Harris and Walz will hit the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, from August 19 to 22.
It is here that Harris is expected to officially accept the party's nomination and outline exactly where she and her running mate stand on a plethora of issues affecting the American people.
“With ClintonKaine, I actually got in touch with the Clinton campaign pretty early on after she picked her running mate," Eche revealed.
"I had a client who connected me with the digital campaign director for the Clinton campaign and the director told me they didn’t have a budget for this and she shouldn’t offer me anything serious."
The staffer reportedly told Eche that they could probably only give him $2,000 for the domain - which he said is less than he had invested in all the domains.
"I think I spent like $3,000 for the 2016 cycle, honestly," he said.
Eche was shocked by Clinton's campaign's rejection.
“There’s only two people who really have an interest in buying [a domain], and the most obvious one didn’t even want it last time, so I got kind of depressed," he said.
“I was like, ‘I did everything right and it didn’t even work out. I’m not even gonna make any money from this - but I did.”
SURPRISING BUYER
A broker reached out to Eche with interested buyers and offered to represent the lawyer in the transaction for a commission fee and Eche took the deal.
The domain was sold to an anonymous buyer for $15,000 - but the anonymous buyer turned out to be the digital campaign director for the Trump campaign at the time.
“I only found out who it was after I transferred the domain, and it was just the name Brad Parscale. And then I googled who he was and figured it out," Eche said.
Parscale served as the senior adviser for data and digital operations during Trump's 2020 run.
Eche was surprised by the identity of the buyer - but in the end, he was glad he was paid at all.
"I don’t think it really helped the Trump campaign," he said.
"And I wasn’t happy to get my Trump money because I’m a Democrat - I was just happy to have money that no longer belonged to the Trump campaign.
“But I would have preferred that Clinton just bought it and I would have cut her a deal. I would’ve taken a lower offer from the Clinton campaign.”
SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER
As of Friday, the HarrisWalz.com domain has been bought from Eche's marketplace - but it's unclear who the buyer is.
Anyone could purchase the domain through the portal available through HarrisWalz.com, which still remains bright green as Eche and his wife were inspired by Charli XCX's album brat.
Before the purchase, Eche said he hoped that Harris' campaign would buy the site.
“I hope the Harris campaign is a little savvier than the Clinton campaign was and that they just buy this domain because I think every presidential campaign should just have a budget to buy their own domain," he said.
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“It seems like a no-brainer if they’re paying people for ad space and billboards and that kind of thing.
"They should also just pay for their own domain."
