February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — A cyber-squatting Cork student hopes to net a fortune from the world wide web computer addresses of new sports stadium being planned by the government and the FAI soccer bosses.
Cormac Burke, 23, a legal graduate, paid about £300 to claim the name stadiumireland.com the day the taoiseach announced the plans for the £281 million stadium.
He also owns the name for the proposed soccer stadium, eircompark.com.
The "domain names" are shortcuts on the computer Internet and can fetch huge fortunes for the squatters who see the potential of them and get in first to claim them.
Last year, the names wallstreet.com, rock.com and bingo.com each fetched about a million dollars. Other high-stakes addresses have included drugs.com ($823,000) eScore.com ($100,000) and art.com (more than $450,000).
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Burke said he hopes to make thousands of pounds and he has already had one online auction bid of £45,000.
"I am finding the opportunities that people are missing out on," he said. "Originally the whole concept wasn’t financially motivated. I wanted a name that was very popular that I could use as a marketing tool for my own ideas at a later stage."