Today I received an e-mail asking if one of my generic, two word .ORG domains was for sale. The potential buyer was a representative of the non-profit that lost the domain and was professing that the non-profit couldn’t afford the price listed on Sedo. They went on to cast doubt that anyone would EVER pay that much for the domain.

I know, it’s just a twist on the traditional, “I want to buy your domain but I’m the only potential buyer and clearly it’s not worth what you’re asking”, but I’d never been approached by a non-profit in this manner.

In a recent business transaction where I myself let some domains expire and found myself groveling I was asked by the new owner if I was a non-profit because he might have given the domains back to me, or charged me less.

Upon my knees and between grovels I wondered how he could consider giving up such a hot property even if it was to a non-profit. Could it be for positive public relations? Would he be requesting backlinks as trade? What benefit did a consummate free market dropcatcher get from giving something away?

Before replying to the old .ORG owner I researched them on DomainTools and checked the domain history on archive.org. They were in fact the previous owner, since 1999. And while they did have a developed website for some periods of their nine year tenancy, they had started using a shorter domain for the past five years and were only forwarding the lost domain.

Why don’t they have case studies like this in a business ethics class? Does a non-profit deserve their domain even though they lost it and weren’t even using it?

I genuinely feel sorry for them (and sympathize with their cause), so I offered to forward the domain for a year or two. I also asked for a friend’s advice who was familiar with the non-profit. I came to realize what was perhaps the motivating force for the non-profit question when I was doing my own groveling: guilt.