I’d better get back to my writing group and start constructively critiquing fiction, because lately I’m aiming my writer focus on domain bloggers -- who are the very worst writers of all. Their poor writing is not what I need to focus on. But I will mention that they are now patting themselves on the back for … something, I’m not quite clear what, but it has to do with Covid-19 and staying home. Three of them have now started using the word “hygiene” when they talk about curating their domain portfolios to eliminate ones they don’t think they can sell. They are starting to really get on my nerves. Practicing hygiene, indeed.

One of these "hygiene" guys had written recently about his own righteous self-quarantining with his wife, which he took a break from when his brother came to town so they could go out to dinner, then started again. And then he went on to scold other domainers for not taking the epidemic seriously & not staying in. I guess going out to dinner doesn't count.

Domainers have an actual controversy right now; some of them began buying up domains that contained the word coronavirus or something similar. A hot news topic can make a domain increase in value. They were essentially exploiting the need for news about the virus, I guess you could say. And then, one man was livid that a domain he’d registered was seized by the government of Spain, because the domain was Coronavirus.es.

(Unlike the generally available .com, the .es extension is regulated by the Spanish government. And the extension .us is controlled and regulated by the US government. Almost every nation has (or had) its own 2-letter internet domain name extension and they get to regulate how it’s used, as they see fit.) So Spain had every right to reclaim the domain. They may have wanted to use it to put up a public information website.

Anyway, Godaddy and quite a few other registrars are now telling their customers that they may not use Godaddy's marketplace to sell coronavirus domains. They don't like how it looks.