John Berryhill: A Belated 2008 Domain Dunce

Better late than never, here’s a 2008 Domain Dunce Award.

What do you mean today is Wednesday?

This stretch I’ve run a series of posts with Domain Dunce Awards for 2009. But there was one I missed last year that is worth giving a retroactive award for.

This one goes out to John Berryhill, the well known domain name attorney. What could a domain name lawyer due to earn this not-so-prestigious award? It’s more what he didn’t do: renew his domain name Berryhill.net. When it expired last year, one of his own clients picked it up in the drop.

How could a domain attorney make such a critical domain name mistake? For all his prowess at responding to UDRPs, he appears to have difficulty with dates. Scheduled to speak at Traffic Down Under 2008 on a Tuesday, Berryhill showed up on Wednesday, having forgotten that Australia is on the other side of the International Date Line. Word is he’s still sending invoices from 2007 and will be wearing a “Happy Fresh Year 2005” hat tomorrow evening.

So, for his failure to renew his domain name, we give him a 2008 Domain Dunce Award. He probably won’t notice the date, anyway.

(By the way, you can still find John on the web at JohnBerryhill.com. That domain doesn’t expire until October 2010, and hopefully is set up for auto renewal.)