Hi, I have a great domain name with .co.uk but im trying to get the .com. At the moment the .com is owned by a very very large and well known comapny (like apple) but the site is NOT used. When you visit the url it does not even have a holding page. I have looked at the history of the site and the last time it was used was for the period of may 2004 to sept 2004 with just 3 pages. What is the best way to approach this? Im in the uk and they are in the US Should i ... a) send them a nice email asking if i could buy it? b) apply for a uk trademark and then email them? .......................
Since its owned by such a large company, I'm assuming they are going to charge A LOT for it. Sound professional when you approach them, but at the same time... don't make it seem that you too are a large company (or else they might hike up the price). You can even try to as for a partnership with the site if all fails..
If they are large, i dont think they will care about earning from that domain. I dont think they will sell it to you even if they will drop it when it expires.
Just my opinion...but if it's a company as large as you say...they really have nothing to gain by selling you this domain...as they aren't hurting for money... It's probably not worth it to them to take the time to go to godaddy (or wherever) and click a button to transfer something for less than xx,xxx So on that note...you'll probably have to find a way to make it seem more lucrative for them...by going a route that doesn't focus as much on the money itself... Or you could send an actual letter someone up in the company (Executive Positions)...sometimes they'll be nice
Just be honest with your approach, explain your situation and why you want the domain. Theres not point in making yourself out to be bigger than you are etc
I have worked at large corporations, and believe it or not, most don't have a clue as to what domains they own. Most of the time product managers think of an idea, and fire off an email to IT to reserve a bunch of variations on names. Then those ideas never take off. Usually about twice a year, IT sends an email saying please take a look at these, are there any you still want, etc. and the product managers never get around to pruning the list. IMHO it won't do any harm in sending an email asking to buy it. There is a good chance, that person will contact the manager who asked it to be reserved, and they may let it go. They might not even charge you anything, cus it would be more work for the person to accept money for it, than to just push it to you. It's worth a shot. Just send a nice pleasant email. Write it so that the person on the other end "wants" to help you. Good luck.