Jeremy Green Eche, a New York trademark attorney, is a Kamala Harris supporter who hopes the current vice president will succeed in her bid for the White House this year. But that’s not why he bought a number of web domains bearing her name in 2020.
In his spare time, Eche buys unclaimed domain names for less than $10 in hopes of one day reselling them for a hefty profit. Also known as domain investing, this hobby has paid off for him over the years.
“I buy domain names that are combinations of two last names that I hope will eventually make up a major party’s presidential ticket,” Eche told CBS MoneyWatch.
Four years ago, Eche bought HarrisWalz.com, an Internet domain that combined Harris’ last name with that of his running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for $8.99. This week, Eche sold the domain to an individual buyer, who identified himself as a Harris supporter, for $15,000.
In an interview with CBS MoneyWatch, Eche compared the sale to “hitting the jackpot.”
“I can put anything I want on the website and a lot of people look at it, and I usually end up selling it,” he said. The buyer of the site is not affiliated with the Harris-Walz campaign, according to Eche. Currently, visitors to HarrisWalz.com are redirected to kamalaharris.com, the candidate’s official campaign page.
“He had to put a redirect in place because he had nothing better to do with it,” Eche said of the buyer. Eche has not received an offer from the Harris campaign, he added. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment on the domain name sale.
Eche said he owns about 60 domains, most of which are made up of the names of politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties whom he considers likely presidential candidates.
“I try to do both sides, but it’s a lot harder to predict the Republican ticket than the Democratic ticket these days,” he said.
This is not his first jackpot
This isn’t the first time Eche has profited from his hobby. In 2016, he sold Clintonkaine.com for $15,000 to an anonymous buyer through a domain broker. He later discovered that the buyer worked for the Trump campaign, which used the site to post disparaging content related to his opponents. Eche said he recently bought the domain back for just under $1,000, in order to feature his own comics.
Eche sold the domain HarrizWalz.com through Communer.com, his own startup, for which he set the asking price at $15,000. He said he has spent about $600 on domain names related to the current election cycle.
He also invests in corporate domain names, including Web addresses of companies he might one day want to run. “But I don’t really invest in non-political things,” he said.
Instead, his eyes remain fixed on possible future presidential campaigns. He currently manages “a bunch of Gretchen Whitmer, Walz and Nikki Haley estates.”
Asked if he was disappointed that Harris’ campaign was unsuccessful, Eche said he would have preferred to sell his project to her.
“Every presidential campaign should allocate a portion of its billion-dollar budget to securing its corresponding domain name, but I didn’t want to kid myself,” he told CBS MoneyWatch.
