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    A guy who bought HarrisWalz.com in 2020 just got a huge payday

    By Grace Eliza Goodwin,

    2024-08-07
    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0s2RfR_0uqaaWdD00
    Jeremy Green Eche buys up political domain names in hopes that they'll pay off one day.
    • A trademark attorney bought the website HarrisWalz.com four years ago.
    • Now he says he sold it for $15,000. The buyer has no clear connection to Harris or Trump.
    • Eche sold ClintonKaine.com for $15,000 in 2016 to a Trump-affiliated company.

    A trademark attorney in Brooklyn, New York, has made a hobby out of buying up domain names for hypothetical political campaigns.

    Now, for the second time, it's led to a pretty big payday.

    Jeremy Green Eche bought the website HarrisWalz.com in 2020 for about $10, thinking at the time that Kamala Harris might score the Democratic presidential nomination, he told Business Insider.

    He also bought websites with the names of different running mates, including HarrisPritzker.com for the Illinois governor, HarrisFetterman.com for Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and HarrisWarnock.com for Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

    After Harris didn't win the nomination that year, Eche kept renewing the domain names in hopes that one day they'd pay off.

    Four years later, HarrisWalz.com finally did — within hours of Harris' selecting Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate this week, Eche told BI, he sold the domain name for $15,000.

    On Wednesday morning, HarrisWalz.com showed up with a brat-green background and a lowercase "walz" — just as Eche set it up, in a nod to Charli XCX's album "Brat," an aesthetic the Harris campaign has jokingly adopted .

    The site links to Eche's domain-name marketplace , where the website is listed as "out of stock."

    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3xrQvY_0uqaaWdD00
    HarrisWalz.com as Jeremy Green Eche set it up before selling the domain.

    Eche told BI the buyer was a "random unaffiliated American guy" who wanted to remain anonymous.

    "He is not affiliated with either campaign, but he's a Harris supporter, and he's buying the domain to protect it," Eche said. "He called himself a domain protector. So he just wants to avoid having the Trump campaign buy it again like they did with ClintonKaine.com."

    The last time Eche made $15,000 off a political domain name — ClintonKaine.com — the buyer turned out to be affiliated with Donald Trump's campaign.

    The campaign used the site to trash-talk Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic nominee, and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, complete with "Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc." at the bottom, according to the AP .

    Eche, who sold the site through a broker, said he didn't know who the buyer was until it was too late.

    "I'm so jaded from 2016," Eche said. "It's hard to express how depressed I got when the Clinton campaign didn't even want to buy it. I just thought I hit the jackpot and that was it, and then the money would show up, and I just wanted to sell it this time to somebody while there was still a lot of hype around it."

    Eche said that even though he's a Democrat, he doesn't regret that sale, because the Trump campaign could've spent the $15,000 elsewhere but gave it to him instead.

    Eche said he was happy with Harris' choice of running mate, and though he'd hoped the Harris campaign would buy the domain name from him, he's just relieved he sold it.

    Eche already has his sights set on his next big payday. He owns a bunch of domain names for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who some have speculated may run for president in 2028, as well as several domains connected to Walz, in case the vice-presidential nominee runs for president in the future.

    Eche said he also owned several domain names with Republicans, but not as many as Democrats, because Republicans are harder to predict. Eche estimated he spent about $3,000 total buying up domain names during the 2016 election cycle and about $500 for the 2024 cycle.

    "It is really fun to be so personally invested in the veepstakes and in the primaries," Eche said. "It's kind of like when you bet on a sports game and the sports game is just much more fun to watch.

    "It is really weirdly validating to have my stupid little hobby deemed newsworthy twice now," Eche added. "It's very validating."

    The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

    Read the original article on Business Insider
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    Comments / 8
    Add a Comment
    this is real
    08-08
    Trolls just buying up internet domains to ransom them to people who need them
    Rando Calrissian
    08-08
    it's called domain squatting. someone did the same thing to the trump campaign in 2020
    View all comments
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