Domains, eBay gets Flooke, Google’s hat bin and CHiPs, the movie? — Walmart’s questionable

Some interesting domain name registrations from Walmart, eBay and Google.

A handful of firms have made some interesting domain name registrations lately, potentially tipping off plans.

First, let’s start with a couple domain registrations that seem more defensive than anything else.

Walmart is frequently criticized for killing mom and pop shops through competition. You can hardly expect it to go on a campaign to save mom and pop stores, so why did it register saveourmomandpops.com?

It is also criticized for putting independent pharmacies out of business. It registered savendependentdrugstores.com. That’s actually a typo; saveIndependentDrugstores.com isn’t registered. So someone made a mistake here.

The domains were originally registered by Walmart. The whois records now show Mark Monitor’s whois privacy service.

Did you know eBay has a classified site called Kijiji? They do, and they’re getting ready to offer a fresh service called Flook or Flooke.

I’m basing this on the couple dozen domain name registrations it made counting flookclassifieds.com, flookebykijiji.com, kijijiflook.com and flookepoweredbykijiji.com. We’ll have to wait to see what it is.

In other interesting registrations, Google registered TheHatBin.com. Any guesses on what it plans to do with that?

Finally, remember that motorcycle cop show CHiPs? You do if you grew up in the 80s. There was a made for TV movie at some point, but perhaps a big screen rendition is forthcoming. A Mark Monitor client registered chipsthemovie.com and Chips-Movie.com. The whois records are protected by privacy, so it could be for something else. Don’t get your hopes up too high, Ponch fans.