I was searching for a product produced by one of the companies my employer buys from.
Several of the hits that showed up pointed to the name of the “old” company that made this product, which has since been bought up by a very, very, very big high-tech manufacturing company.
This domain is on the verge of lapsing.
Would this domain have any market value for resale, or would the rights of Megacorp to its subsidiary’s name render the domain unmarketable?
I was thinking that someone who resells Megacorp products or products competing with Megacorp could use it for a redirect.
I’m no expert, but if the domain name contains the name of the company or one of its products, and the company name and/or product is still copyrighted or a registered trademark, then the company that owns the copyright/trademark can come after you for domain squatting, because they have a legal claim on the name you are using for the domain (even though you just snagged the domain after it lapsed).
For example, let’s say I went back in time and registered “www.tonka.com.” Tonka (or Hasbro post-buyout) would have an obligation to defend the unauthorised use of their name (or the name of their subsidiary for which they hold the registered trademark).
It is possible however to register a similar domain name if it can be proven that use of the name does not infringe upon copyright nor dilute the brand name from which it was derived. AtariLabs went through this with Infogrames (who own and are now known as Atari) a few years back and won the right to use Atari Labs on the grounds that there is not, nor has there ever been, a division of Atari known as “Atari Labs.” Thus it may be possible to register “www.tonka-labs.com” and successfully contest Hasbro’s eventual cease-and-desist order.
Note that none of this is first-hand knowledge but simply my observations from having followed the Atari Labs drama when it was unfolding.
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- -There is at least one porn website operator that is notorious for jumping on lapsed domain names of popular non-porn-related sites, as well as popular misspellings. I seem to remember that (for one example) one he got was when US chain hardware store Ace Hardware let the domain name “acehardwaretools.com” lapse, he snagged it the day after–but that name does not resolve to anything for me now. I saw a list once of all the guy’s domain names, and most of them were “derivative” domain names (as above) of legitmiate non-porn businesses.
You want to use up your allocted bandwith telling people you ain’t the persob their hunting for.
Lapsed domain names are hard to “grab” though.
The previous owner will probably get a ton of emails saying “you’re about to expire” “you just expired” “you expired 2 days ago” “if you pay us an extra $50 we can take it out of lock and re-register” etc etc.
Then it’ll stay on Registrar Lock for a really long time while the registrar tries to extort the original owner out of some money to get it re-established.
But in the meantimg you can pay some $20-50 to get monthly notices about the status of the domain and how it’s still not available. And right when you’re ready to buy, some other guy who makes a living doing this will get it right from undery our nose.
That’s just my take on it, though. You can try 
Not worth the hassle. I’d be crossing Honeywell, and I’m not sure how many hits this domain gets anyway.