Who owns this domain?

Start with a public WHOIS lookup. ICANN Lookup is the official one and who.is is the most readable. Both are free and neither requires an account. You will see the registrar, the registration and expiration dates, and — if the owner has not enabled privacy protection — contact details.

Because most registrars now include privacy protection by default, and European and other privacy rules redact a lot of what used to be public. You will usually see a forwarding address at the privacy provider rather than a human. That address often works, but it is a slow channel and plenty of owners never check it.

Sometimes. The privacy forwarder, the site itself if one exists, the business behind the name, and public business records are all legitimate routes. What you should not do is try to work around the privacy service through anything sketchy. If the honest routes fail, that is exactly what our acquisition service is for.

Usually a bad bet. Expiring names go through a renewal grace period, then a redemption period, then an auction, and the overwhelming majority get renewed by the owner before any of that finishes. Names worth having rarely fall out the bottom. Waiting mostly costs you months.

That may be a trademark matter rather than a purchase. ICANN’s Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy exists for exactly this, and in the United States the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act is the court route. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice — if you think a name infringes a mark you hold, talk to a trademark attorney before you make an offer, because an offer can change the picture.

A $1,500 engagement fee that buys a written acquisition report whether or not the name changes hands, plus 15% of the purchase price if it closes — 15% or $1,500, whichever is greater. Full detail here.