Rand Paul's Domain Name Problem Cost Him $100K

The free market was not Rand Paul's friend when he tried to buy RandPaul.com before launching his White House bid: The Republican ended up paying $100,980 to domain service Escrow.com for the name, even though it had previously been owned by Paul supporters, reports the National Journal, which notes that the price is very high even by the standards of campaign cybersquatters. "Holy crap," a GOP digital strategist tells the Journal. "That's a ton." Records show that the name was bought on March 27, less than two weeks before Paul launched his campaign, the Hill reports.

But at least Paul—like Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton—now owns his name while some of his rivals and potential rivals don't own theirs, reports the Los Angeles Times. Carly Fiorina has her own domain name problem, with CarlyFiorina.org featuring 30,000 sad faces to represent Hewlett-Packard layoffs. ChrisChristie.com belongs to a guy in Wisconsin who shares a name with the New Jersey governor, and TedCruz.com leads to a page that says "Support President Obama. Immigration Reform Now!" TeaParty.com, meanwhile, is still the property of a Canadian band, which could have made $1 million from the domain name but didn't want it to be used for "criticism of socialized medicine." (More Rand Paul stories.)