What would you do/not do

[stevo]

I have owned knol(dot)us since July of 2006. Well before any announcement from Google concerning their knol.google.com intentions. I hand regged knol(dot)us based upon the fact that the wife's grandmother is "Gramma Knol". I think popular (even not so popular) first or last names are great investments so when I saw this name on a drop list, I eventually registered it. Traffic was minimal, but I figured that someone will want it someday. Maybe even someone in the wife's family.
Anyway........ Traffic has increased lately and I have seen several articles concerning the knol(dot)com issue. This being one of them:

http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=332


Article contains:

As we mentioned last week, Google, in spite of already having launched their Knol website, doesn’t own the domain name Knol(.)com. It is owned by Dutchman Hilco Knol, who sells steam cleaning equipment on that URL.

He hasn’t sold the domain name yet, but it seems like he has been approached by Google with a six-figure offer. However, he has stated that he wants at least €1 million to part with the domain name. That is approximately $1.56 million.

You could call him an unintentional domain speculator. All of a sudden a person running a small business has found himself in possession of a domain name for a brand belonging to one of the largest companies in the world. All because his last name happens to be Knol.
It could happen to anyone

When a big company like Google launches a brand with a name that happens to coincide with a domain name you own, your company may be in for a significant (and unexpected) pay day.

You’ll have the trouble of switching domain names if you sell yours, of course, but if you run a small business with a moderate income that trouble can easily be offset by the profit from the sale of the domain name.

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Well, what should I avoid with this name. The name is at parked.com and is not referencing anything concerning Google's recent venture. Should I expect issues from Google? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[draggar]

Avoid parking it and if you do take the chance, make sure it does not point towards any Google Knol based products and/or services.

Google is agressive with TMs but if you put up site based on the name (as you mentioned, Grandma Knol) then you should be OK.

If Google offers to buy it from you, though, drinks are on you.

 

[BiggieBiggie is verified member.]

you could put up a few pages, with pics or stories about your grandmother, her life story and family tree.

put in some adsense and run with it.


i'm sure they already knew the knol was a surname before they decided to go with it.

google offering someone a few million bucks for the .com domain would be "less than a peanut" from their money farm.

the dumb thing on big G's part is that they should have bought the name long before they announced the service.

imo...

 

[stevo]

Switched the parking to Bodis. Removed the "for sale" link. Added a picture of the wife's Grandma Knol.
Nothing fancy. What do you think?

 

[katherine]

As said above, unpark the name or at least make sure there are no google ads running. Just because you registered the name before there was a TM doesn't mean you can run ads with their TM. This would be asking for trouble
I don't know if google acquires .us domains though, so you may have to consider developing