He Bought the Harris-Walz Domain Name in 2020

Head to HarrisWalz.com and you won't see the Democratic nominees' biographies or platforms. Instead, you'll see a simple neon-green background with the word "Walz" in black lowercase letters. That's because the domain name has been owned for the past four years by a Brooklyn trademark attorney who scooped it up for less than $10, in the hopes this eventual pair would make a run for the White House and allow him to hawk the site for big bucks. "I ... freely call myself a domain squatter or a cybersquatter," Jeremy Green Eche tells NPR. "It's a pejorative term, but I don't mind using it because it's still accurate."

• Initial purchase: The 36-year-old lawyer tells the AP he bought the Harris-Walz domain name in 2020 for just $8.99, when then-Sen. Kamala Harris was running for president the first time around, with Eche speculating on all the possibilities for her potential running mate. "I just tried to grab her name and all the heartland governors I could think of," he says.

• Portfolio: Eche, who tells NPR he goes on a domain name "buying spree" for possible political tickets a couple of times a year, has at least 15 domain names tied to Harris, including HarrisPritzker.com (for Illinois governor JB Pritzker), HarrisFetterman.com (Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman), and HarrisWarnock.com (Georgia Sen. Rafael Warnock).
• Cashing in: Eche owned the ClintonKaine.com name when Hillary Clinton chose Tim Kaine as her running mate in 2016, but her campaign only offered Eche $2,000. He sold it instead for $15,000 to an anonymous buyer—actually the Trump campaign, which then used the site to slam Clinton. Eche had hoped the Harris campaign would pay a similar price, but instead he sold it on Tuesday for that much to "a seemingly random person with no connection to either campaign."
• Looking ahead: Eche also owns a bunch of domains for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and some possible running mates, as well as ones that have Walz at the top of the ticket, in anticipation of future pairings.
• 'Brat' design: As for why Eche chose the spartan design that graces the Harris-Walz site, he tells Fast Company that Harris' sudden ascension to Democratic nominee just months before the election put some pressure on him. He says his wife suggested they capitalize on a current fad tied to Harris: something with a simple "brat" theme.

(More cybersquatting stories.)