Ashish Patel

Background on patel.com and patel.net and why I think the owner is guilty of cyber-squatting….

Current owner
Pravin Patel (as per whois listing) from San Jose

Initial contact (Dec 2005)
E-mails show willingness to speak over phone. Owner requests that I call his phone number (408-499-6677).

Initial Discussion (Dec 2005)
Owner discloses the fact that he has 20yrs of telco experience. Owner indicates desire to make money from these domains. Wishes to start up a Skype/VoIP type of service, but has failed numerous times. Offers to form partnership with myself if I can basically build his telco service for him and make him rich, when asked what he would be doing the answer is merely a dismal silence (aka. nothing). Bad vibe already, and since I only want to buy the domains and no interest in his failed telco dream I do not follow up.

Follow-up (Jan 2009)
E-mail sent to owner asking if he is willing to speak about selling these domains. I receive a reply, Feb 1, 2009, asking me to call the same number I called in 2005.

Follow-up Discussion (2009)
Almost verbatim from our 2005 discussion, the owner repeats his speech: (1) 20 yrs telco experience (2) failed at starting telco (3) can you do it for me and make me rich.
At this point, I’m thinking “give it up, your cyber-squatting and its obvious, didn’t even try changing up the story from last time!” I mention to the owner that I spoke to him in 2005 and he gave me the same story. I ask the owner if he is using the domains for any purpose since 2005 and the owner clearly answers “no”. I follow-up and ask the owner “since you are clearly not using the domains would you be willing to sell the domain”. The answer is “yes” this time, but he says “I can give you a subspace, like patel.com/” — so really what he meant was “I’ll give you some storage online and not sell the domain”. Now, I know he is just playing games, so I asked “what will it take for you to sell these domains”, he replies “I want to start a telco and need help”…so I reply “I can find you help to do that and in exchange you will give me ownership of the domains?” – his answer is “no”. So basically even if anyone helped this guy build a telco and make him rich he isn’t even willing to budge for a return on the domain…what a greedy fellow.

At this point, I asked him if he understood was cyber-squatting is doing and clearly mention to him that he’s just playing games and trying to hold the domains for no purpose.

I later find out that there are several others, one specifically from NJ and TX, United states, who have also contacted him. So given that there is some sort of demand for these domains, who agrees with me that this guy is playing games and could potentially be illegally pulling our chains?

Why I wrote this entry: I don’t mean to be bringing any patel-on-patel challenges, but rather that anyone holding onto a domain where somone else wants to purchase it (ie. do an exchange for a good/service with payment as the returning favour) should be allowed to — especially if the domain is just sitting idle and not serving any meaningful purpose.

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