Milk: Not for sale. Or: I got milk.com!

People occasionally email me about buying the domain milk.com from me. I used to respond to such requests with, "How much are you offering?" These days, if you don't mention a number, I probably won't mail you back. However, let me warn you that I like the name and I have a reasonably well-paying job, so it'll have to be a pretty damn good offer. Note that a number (in whole U.S. dollars) which includes fewer than 8 significant digits to the left of the decimal point does not constitute "pretty damn good" in my book. That is, if you're not offering $10 million, I'm not interested.

Many people ignore the above and still seem to insist that I should be willing to take less. Keeping in mind that, as I said, I like the name, realize now that if I'm going to sell out, I'm going to do it right. Furthermore, I've done my research.

According to their information website, the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program (Wikipedia) had annual revenues of approximately $103 million in 2012 (copy of the 2012 report). They use this to fund various marketing efforts, including a couple of ad campaigns, among other things. Clearly, if these guys wanted it, they could afford to buy the domain.

I don't have an official link for the California Milk Processor Board, but according to this article in the UC Davis Innovator, in 1999 their revenues were a more modest $27 million a year, which they use for the "got milk?" ad campaign among other things. Maybe it'd be a bit more of a stretch for them compared to their national counterpart, but they could afford the domain too if they wanted it badly enough.