Jon Shultz, an American businessman, is an opportunist of sorts who makes money from war and disaster domain names. The president of Las Vegas-based Blue String Ventures is trying to sell the Ebola.com domain for a whopping $150,000.
Labelled as the ‘merchant of disease’ by the Washington Post, the entrepreneur also owns birdflu.com and H1N1.com. He has one for the deadly mosquito-borne disease, Chikungunya, and another for Marburg. He purchased Ebola.com in 2008 for $13, 500, and might soon make a good profit by selling it for more than ten times the original price.
Shultz, who has been criticised for opportunising on the deadly disease, justifies it by claiming that the sale price was “reasonable”. Schultz told CNBC: “$150,000 is not a tremendous amount for a premium domain. The fact that this is a top news story makes it very reasonable, in our opinion, as many domains sell for seven figures.
He adds,”Having seen the movie Outbreak I was entranced by the subject (of Ebola) and couldn’t resist buying the domain.” The website, which is a basic HTML page with links to information about the outbreak, receives 5,000 page views per day.
“We’ve had many inquiries on the domain over the years. Ebola.com would be a great domain for a pharmaceutical company working on a vaccine or cure, a company selling pandemic or disaster-preparedness supplies, or a medical company wishing to provide information and advertise services.”
