What to do if you accidentally let your domain name expire. By 1&1…

I was browsing the 1&1 registrar website today (no I am not a customer) and found this useful advice to domain owners that did not intent to let their domains expire and their domains have been re-registered by someone else. This must be the best advice on expired domains that I have seen coming from a registrar. In sort they say that re-registering expired domains is legal and that it happens every day and gives the previous owner 3 options:

1. Consider the legal options if they hold a matching trademark and the name is not generic
2. Try to buy it from the current owner by making an offer politely and by reimbursing the fees involved (their acknowledge that catching expired domains can be very expensive)
3. If the owner doesn’t want to give up the domain hire a broker to buy the domain

It seems that you can either do 2 or 3 and not both but it is still a valid advice overall.

Usually the advice to the previous owner is:

1. Offer $10 for a domain that was just acquired for 6k USD at an auction
2. Make empty threats of legal action to the new owner
3. Curse at the new owner and complain to every forum possible

1&1 is a sister company to Sedo, that is why on their article they have a link to Sedo’s legal resources.