Runna.com Founder Exposes Behind the Scenes of Domain Name Negotiations!

Recently, the founder of Runna.com sparked a lot of attention when he shared the behind-the-scenes story of the domain negotiation through a video. Although the owner of Shopping.com was mentioned in the video, an investigation revealed that this was not the actual case and that the domain name was owned by someone else.

Runna.com was first registered on March 27, 2003, and started out as a directory site designed to help users find stores that offer the products they need at the prices they want. According to archive.org's history, the site's taglines are "Let us do all the running for you!" and "Your personal store and service operator!" . The site was owned by Mark Hallett until the site expired in 2014.

In 2014, Runna.com went to the hosted domain suspension page and the site was then taken offline and sold for $122 via NameJet on May 5 of that year. The new buyer was a domain registrant from China (information provided by WhoisXMLApi.com), and the domain was then listed for sale on Chinese domain resale platform JinName.com (4.cn).

A historical and reverse Whois lookup of email addresses that registered the Runna.com domain name between 2014 and 2022 reveals that the buyer primarily owns a portfolio of .CN domain names. This hints that the domain name negotiations for Runna.com may have started with GoldenName.com.

In the video, the founder raises a question: is the domain name for sale at the price mentioned in the video? How would you respond to such a domain name negotiation if someone came to your door with trademark documents related to one of your domain names?

It is unclear what the final transaction price of the domain name was and the specific details behind it, but the incident has sparked a wide-ranging discussion about the value of domain names and negotiation strategies.

Source: robbiesblog