What you should know about cyber-squatting

HACKING:

I have never been a cyber-squatter and I don’t plan on becoming one as I have better dreams and goals to achieve. I’m way to busy for that. Although, I know it does fetch a lot of money if lucky but still I don’t see it as a right thing to do.

What is cyber squatting?

Squatting in itself means occupying an abandoned area. It is also known as domain squatting. Wikipedia describes it this way:

Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting), according to the United States federal law known as the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price. 

Here’s what a domain owned by a cyber squatter looks like:

Oh darn! The whitehouse? Oh yea they got the white house.

I think the guys that do these things are really smart. They see potentials of a domain being put to use in the future and they grab it so fast. Let’s say my name is John Doe and I suddenly become a big rap star. Some squatting fellas will make a fast move to buy domains like johndoe.com, johndoe.us, johndoe.info, johndoe.biz, johndoe.net, johndoe.org and as much as they can.

As some point I feel I need a domain like other my other celebrity friends and I see that all my name domains have been purchased and are available for purchase at an extremely steep price.

What’s my problem with this?

Like I said I’m not a squatter but at the same time I don’t think this should be taken illegal in any way. These guys didn’t steal what didn’t belong to them. They simply purchased something before the intended owners and for no reason should it be a crime. I’m aware the United States, Australia, and Canada take civil actions against people that involve in this.

I don’t like to break the rules but at the same time I love to share my opinions. There is nothing illegal about domain squatting. It’s only a smarter move by the squatters. If you find potential in yourself then get your domain soon enough. We are all running horse necks on the internet. It’s a battle, a market, a competition. Whoever gets it first owns it and has the right to it. They are known cases of cyber squatting which I’ll list below:

• Jethro Tull
• Madonna
• Primedia Magazine Finance Inc. (Tiger Beat) vs Next Level Productions (Benny Doro)
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. Doughney
• Lamparello v. Falwell
• Lufthansa v. Future Media Architects
• The White House against Whitehouse.com and Whitehouse.org

you can drop yours in the comments

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