The Blackstone Group, the world’s largest private equity asset manager, went on a buying spree recently. What were they shopping for? Domain names, of course. Specifically, names that put the company or its CEO’s name in a bad light. The strategy is commonly known as registering defensive domain names. In this case, Blackstone bought BlackstoneSucks.com and SchwarzmanSucks.com (Peter Schwarzman is the CEO). Reuters points out: “Private equity professionals are having to defend their record as job creators against popular criticism of them as asset-strippers in pin-striped suits, saddling companies with debt, selling their assets and taking dividends.” So I suppose it’s a good idea to preemtively buy up sites before the haters get a chance to, but you just can’t find ‘em all.
As of this morning, and I’m not advocating anything, here’s a short list of name’s you can still buy:
BlackstoneReallySucks.com
IHateBlackstone.com
BlackstoneKillsKittens.com
ILoveBlackstone.com (Get it? Irony.)
BlackstoneBlows.com