A farsighted Brooklyn millennial purchased HarrisWalz.com in 2020 – four years later the self-styled "cybersquatter" made $15,000 selling the domain after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her presidential running mate.
Trademark attorney Jeremy Green Eche, 36, said that he goes on "buying sprees" on sites like Name.com and GoDaddy, purchasing domain names that correspond with potential political campaigns.
"I'm fine with that word, ["cybersquatting"], although other people who buy domain names get mad at me for saying that. They say I should use ‘domain investor,'" Eche told Fox News Digital. "I'm buying these domains with politicians' names in them – I think it meets the definition of cybersquatting… but arguably, this brand, ‘Harris Walz,’ didn't exist until yesterday.
"It's something that someone can take you to domain mediation for," the trademark lawyer explained. "It's just that it takes so long and it costs so much money to seize a domain from a cybersquatter that it doesn't make sense for a presidential campaign to do it – they would spend more than $15,000, and the campaign would have been over."
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Eche said he bought 15 Harris-related domain names in August 2020, combining her name with "every sort of folksy white man [he] could think of who was big at the time."
Other combinations included Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
It costs about $10 to purchase each domain name, Eche said, and he repays the small amount each year to keep the website active.
Eche said it was largely guesswork – the Brooklyn native keeps up with politics and is a member of New York City's Democratic Socialists of America chapter.
When he came up with the concept of buying political domains, Eche said, he was an autograph dealer.
"I would get Obama to sign five of his books at once and sell them on eBay for $500 or so each," Eche said. "It occurred to me that I could do something similar with domains."
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This isn't the first time Eche made a correct guess that paid off – in 2016, Eche was the owner of ClintonKaine.com. He had also purchased ClintonBooker.com and ClintonBiden.com in case the then-Democratic nominee chose Sen. Cory Booker or Joe Biden as her running mate.
Eche, who went by Jeremy Peter Green before he married, said that he was living off credit card debt in a basement and hoped to sell the domain name for $10,000.
When the Clinton campaign offered just $2,000, Eche said, he began showcasing his Harry Potter-themed political fan fiction on the site. Ultimately, he said he sold the domain to an anonymous buyer for $15,000. That buyer ended up being a member of the Trump campaign, which used the site to publish anti-Clinton news during the election.
"Honestly, back in 2016, I got really depressed when the Clinton campaign didn't even make me a serious offer," he said on Tuesday, NPR reported. "I’m hoping the people at the Harris campaign are maybe a little more savvy, a little more on top of things, especially now that they see what happened last time."
On Tuesday, Eche sold HarrisWalz.com on his online marketplace to a "seemingly random person with no connection to either campaign" for $15,000, he told Fox News Digital.
"What he told me, the guy I sold it to, he said he's a Harris supporter, and he's basically buying the domain so the Trump campaign doesn't buy it like they did with ClintonKaine.com in 2016," Eche said.
Now, Eche feels like the "best political cybersquatter ever."
"The last few days I've had such a weird sense of deja vu," Eche said. "I'm just going through the same thing I went through eight years ago. To do this twice, it feels very good – it feels like last time it wasn't an accident."
Eche said he will keep the other Harris-related domains he purchased in case the current vice president runs again.
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"Not only are these domains valuable for the 2024 election, but they will also retain their value in 2028 if Harris runs in that year," Eche wrote on his online marketplace, where he is currently selling the domains. "This makes them an excellent investment."
He said he also purchased 10 different domain names related to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in case she runs for president in the future, and he has anticipated Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth as her potential running mates, and is asking for $9,900 for each of those domains.
"I picked up a bunch of Walz domains, too," Eche said. "Anyone who's chosen as a vice presidential running mate is a de facto contender for the presidency later on."
Eche purchases Republican-related domain names, too – his best guess this year, he said, was TrumpCotton.com.
"You have to buy these domains so far in advance – when I was buying domains for this cycle, J.D. Vance was still just an author. He wasn't on my radar," Eche said. "Probably someone bought it when he was running for Senate. Wish I had thought of that one."
The Harris campaign could not immediately be reached for comment.
