If it’s your family name, what can they do but bleed you in legal costs? It depends on the country maybe, but I would not part with that domain in my country if it’s my family name and registered ages ago (clearly not to try to blackmail that company). Not sure anyone should.
Horrible advice.
It's just a name, and if you're not a registered company, you're going to be seen as a squatter no matter what.
All I'm suggesting is to be prepared to have the domain ownership contested and have a backup if you have to change domains.
> I spent like a year or so to save up for it, which cost roughly 6 months of average net salaries in my country about 7 years ago.
Not really, you are stating, matter of factly, that the big evil corp will own it and you are basically screwed. This is not true (in places I know, but might differ somewhere) if it’s not squatting and it’s actually your family name. It’s beyond reasonable.
Also, I find this capitalist overlord cynicism really quite annoying. I would help OP with legal fees to prevent this from happening. Just laying down and get pummelled just because it’s a big corp should not be the default.
It wasn't $5.