This lawyer bought HarrisWalz.com years ago. Now, he's sold it

As It Happens6:01This lawyer bought HarrisWalz.com years ago. Now, he's sold it

Before Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris revealed Tim Walz as her pick for vice president earlier this week, many American voters hadn't heard of the Minnesota governor. 

But four years ago, Brooklyn trademark attorney Jeremy Green Eche bought a domain name for a potential future ticket featuring the two politicians: HarrisWalz.com. 

"The fact that he was a Midwestern governor in 2020 was what put him on my radar," Eche told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "You don't need to be famous or have a national profile to be picked as a running mate…. Geographically and demographically, [Walz] balances a Harris ticket. So, it made a lot of sense." 

That wasn't the only domain he bought. 

Eche describes himself as a "cybersquatter," a person who buys a domain with someone else's name or brand for very little money, hoping to sell it to that person or brand for a large profit in the subsequent months or years. 

In this case, he did reap a big reward. 

He bought HarrisWalz.com for $8.99 US ($12.34 Cdn) in August of 2020. This August, he's sold it for $15,000 US ($20,594 Cdn). 

Eche owns a number of other websites tied to Harris's name, including HarrisEvers.com, for Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, HarrisFetterman.com, for Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, and HarrisWarnock.com, for Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock.

He does not own a domain connected to Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, who was a top contender for the VP spot that Walz eventually landed. 

Eche says the person who bought HarrisWalz.com doesn't want to reveal his name. 

"Hard to convey through email … but I guess he seemed to be pretty happy about the purchase and it's on its way to him now in domain land." 

"But he's a random guy in the United States who supports the Harris campaign and he wanted to buy it before it fell into the wrong hands." 

In 2011, five years before Hillary Clinton selected Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine to be her running mate in the presidential race, Eche purchased ClintonKaine.com. 

After the former secretary of state made the pick, Eche offered it to the campaign for a hefty return. They declined, so he sold it for $15,000 to a digital marketing company that turned out to be the Trump campaign. The website pushed anti-Clinton news with "Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc" emblazoned at the bottom.

In the case of HarrisWalz.com, Eche says anyone who wanted to buy it could do it with their credit card instantly, as long as they were willing to meet his price. 

"The Harris campaign, who presumably knew her running mate before anyone else, they could have easily just bought it the night before they announced it. I didn't really have any control over who bought it because of the way I chose to list it," said Eche. 

While he sees this as a fun, harmless project that he uses to promote whatever he's working on at the moment, there are those who don't see his hobby that way. While Eche says he doesn't mind calling himself a cybersquatter, he says it can be a pejorative term. 

"I've actually been getting … hateful messages on LinkedIn and Instagram," he said. 

"Sometimes, I'll Google and I'll find, you know, subreddits where people think I'm just a total bloodsucker and it's kind of surreal to read. I think most people think it's kind of cool and they wish they thought of it. It's just like a really niche slice-of-life story. It's not really important." 

Eche didn't buy a domain with J. D. Vance's name in it, before the former U.S. president Donald Trump picked him as his running mate. But he says he did buy TrumpCotton.com, for the Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton. 

Eche is already looking forward to 2028 too. 

"I have a good collection of Gretchen Whitmer domains, the governor of Michigan, and I also have a lot of Tim Walz domains because he is in the same position that Harris was in four years ago."

The Kamala Harris and Tim Walz teams did not respond to a request for comment about this story. As It Happens also reached out to the anonymous buyer of the HarrisWalz.com domain, via an email provided by Eche, but has not heard back.