When your company enjoys the mellifluous name of "Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment," you're probably right to shorten it when purchasing a web domain. You had no way of knowing that your industrious URL would be similar to that for the poster children of Internet Bubble 2.0. But naturally, $1.65 billion later, you're definitely in the mood for a payout to ditch the domain and let your tubular customers occasionally access your site again. When Reuters talked to UTRE honcho Ralph Girkins, he claimed he'd already turned down a $1 million offer for utube.com from a YouTube "intermediary," but he wants something more in the $2.5 million to $3 million range. His whole site's since disappeared, so either he came to some accommodation with the new overlords at Google, or a squatter swiped the domain out from under him. We hope it's the former, just so we can see Girkins's own giggly fuck-you-I'm-rich video.
UTube to Google: Let's talk [Reuters]
