Full name domains

[SEO Power]

I have a few in my portfolio and have an eye on several others but what is the general concensus on buying personal name domains eg, JohnSmith/co/uk with a view to selling them onwards?
Are there any rules preventing this or is it more of an ethical consideration only?
Would be interested to hear the views of others...

 

[accelerator]

Never tried regging one but if you go for first name plus second name then target market is quite limited. Probably better to stick to first name only or last name only.

If the person is famous they may have taken out further intellectual property rights so then defending the name would be difficult.

Rgds

 

[alex]

I believe there is nothing wrong legally, but personally I'm not really for it. I had to buy alexjordan.co.uk from Domcollect so know what it is like having to fork out £xxx for my own name - It's not great, especially when it was free to reg when I first got into domains! From a money making perspective you'd have to buy loads and see what happens, but in general if it's a famous person don't bother. Personally I'd say put your money elsewhere, but I'm sure others here would disagree.

 

[Blossom]

It sounds like a tough market to crack because as accelerator says it's a limited market. Most first name domain names are taken as well; I managed to snap up jenni.me through a GoDaddy auction but only by a massive stroke of luck, and it's still not a great extension really.

Added to that, most people probably wouldn't be motivated to pay lots for their name, when they could skirt the costs by adding their middle initial, or their profession, or use a nickname etc.? That's just my thoughts though...