Determination of end user in sales

Often high value domain holders are faced by an obsecure buyer who may be acting on behalf of a third party.

How can you counteract this to find the true buyer?

As you would know, the determination of the end user can be key critical in determining the value of a domain in a highly inelastic market for a unique domain name.

Any Seller of a domain wishes to ensure absolute maximisation of proceeds, therefore a third party acquirer can make the difference between accepting $5k and $250k easily. Many large corporations are now using cloaked agents.

As with the sale of products a vendor can ensure that resale does not occur. This is achieved by the statement "not for resale" which makes it easy to determine fakes and so forth being sold via online traders such as ebay.com. This should also apply to domains. (However, I think maxing the 10 year prepaid registration would help ensure the original title length, as a buyer could say that renewal was a new "right").

A second angle is inserting the right of pre-emption (My favourite easily), this makes any acquirer of the domain firstly offer the domain back to you before selling to any other party. If you make the agent the buyer then they have difficulty passing to the end user. If you make the right of pre-emption at 50% of the price you originally sold it, then you can see the issues it brings up for the agent.

I would guess sooner or later a standardized agreement to transfer form will appear which will include some/all of the provisions above. (Won't be me as I have bigger fish to fry! ;)
Please refer to your legal advisor where necessary - This does not constitute professional advice Copyright UFO.ORG^TM (c) 2005 

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