Last Sunday former Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Kobe Bryant passed away tragically. Bryant was an NBA legend, considered one of the greatest players in the history of the game. His private helicopter crashed in California killing another eight passengers, including his 13-year-old daughter. The tragedy shook the United States and the entire world: many outstanding athletes, performers and politicians from all over the world conveyed their condolences. However, there have been quite a few people who used the tragedy for profit, including – and this is hardly the first occasion – domain name speculators.
As soon as Sunday night, somebody registered kobebryantcrash.com and kobebryanthelicopter.com. So far GoDaddy alone, a leading domain registry, has about a hundred Kobe Bryant-related domains for sale, from goodbyekobe.com and kobethegreat.com to kobebryantmemorial.net and legendarykobebryant.com. Prominent domain investor and analyst Raymond Hackney notes on his blog TLD Investors that there is no reason to believe these registrants are actually mourning given that they immediately put these names up for sale with prices ranging from $1,000 to $99,999.
