23
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Changes
→Business Practices
==Background==
Mr. Schwartz attended is a few months of community college before working dropout <ref>[http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2000/09/25/story3.html]</ref> who eventually went on to work in sales. He is a past bankruptee. <ref>[http://www.domainsherpa.com/rick-schwartz-domainking-interview/]</ref> For a time, he sold Asian made products at trade shows and in trade magazines. He recognized the benefit of the Internet to a salesman and claims the day that he learned about the [[FTP|File Transfer Protocol]] was the day that changed his life. He began putting his brochures and sales materials online, and around this time he discovered the monetary potential of domain names via acquiring such names as Porno.com.<ref>[http://www.dnjournal.com/columns/cover020204.htm DNJournal]</ref>
==Domaining==
Rick credits much of his success to being early on the [[domaining]] rush. His initial investment consisted of $1,800 dollars, but soon spent $42,000 on porno.com. To generate additional resources, he sold a "sales" business for 7 figures in 1998. Around this time he was purchasing domains such as candy.com, porno.com <ref>[http://whois.domaintools.com/porno.com]</ref>, men.com, childpornography.com <ref>[http://whois.domaintools.com/childpornography.com]</ref> and gaycock.com <ref>[http://whois.domaintools.com/gaycock.com]</ref>
In 2000, he expressed his belief that search engines would have little value, claiming ""I believe as time goes on, they're going to have less importance.My whole idea is why I believe in type-in hits. I say that human behavior will develop so that people will surf first and search later." <ref>[http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2000/09/25/story3.html]</ref>
Mr. Schwartz has over 4,300 domains that he claims bring in a combined traffic of 95,000 - 115,000 visitors each day. His sites tend to be parked pages with revenue-producing links. Schwartz's portfolio is managed by [[Moniker]].<ref>[http://www.dnjournal.com/columns/cover020204.htm DNJournal.com]</ref> Many of his sites, approximately half, are "adult" oriented domains, though he insists that none of these pages have any actual illicit content, beyond the name, and that they are merely parked advertising space.<ref>[http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2000/09/25/story3.html BizJournals.com]</ref>
Mr. Schwartz became involved in a high-profile lawsuit and counter-suit when Lilly Industries Inc., claimed that his goofoff.com address violated their trademarked Goof Off paint remover. Rick was informed by [[Network Solutions]] that Lilly had filed a dispute on the namespace and that he would have to litigate or face his site being placed on hold. At that time, the site was running as a travel and entertainment portal. He saw this as another example of "Fortune 500 Bullies" using their financial resources to push small business owners away from legitimately acquired and retained domains.<ref>[http://www.erealestate.com/domainking/articles.htm eRealEstate]</ref> A visit to goofoff.com today shows that the site remains in Rick's hands.<ref>[http://goofoff.com/ GoofOff.com]</ref> The settlement agreement allowed Rick to keep the site under certain restrictions, and Lilly Industries assumed all legal fees.<ref>[http://www.neusnews.com/blog/legal/ANALYSIS-OF-THE-GOOFOFFCOM-CASE-AT-NAF.php?post_id=51&pgtitle=ANALYSIS+OF+THE+GOOFOFFCOM+CASE+AT+NAF&category=legal NeusNews]</ref>
==Awards==
