Domain Squatters Lose In Court

jcork writes: "An article at Gigalaw discusses a case verdict in which the "squatter" is fined big bucks for typosquatting on domains." Somehow I don't think "incalculable" should be synonomous with "infinite".

Comments

Playing Up Damages

[hoeferbe]

Although I have no love for people who intentionally try to mislead others, (can you say "fraud"?) I think the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act is an being used unjustly. Take, for instance, this quote from the article:
---
> By registering variations of Electronics Boutique's
> domain names, Zuccarini "mousetrapped" users who
> mistyped the retailer's domain name, forcing users to
> view numerous advertisements and making it difficult
> for them to leave, according to the court. Zuccarini
---
"...difficult for them to leave"?! Give me a break! Are web users really so incapable of pressing "Ctrl-O" and typing the correct URL in? Is this piddly little stuff the scope of what the U.S. citizens' *Federal* government is involving themselves in? If the above description is true (the sites are down now, so I cannot check) then it should have been obvious to the web users that they weren't were they intended to browse to.
Is what is Zuccarini doing respectable? No! However I don't think it is such a problem that the U.S. Federal government, with fines of $100,000 per domain name, has to get involved.

Re:Playing Up Damages

[Nos.]

Well, for computer geeks no, we can get out. But for an average home user, it can be tough to get out of some of these sites. I haven't been to these sites, but if they're spawning other browser windows, it can get difficult to leave. I know when I'm browsing newsgroups, I keep one hand hovering on Alt-F4 (on my Win box anyways) to quickly close any browser windows that pop up.

Now I'm against cybersquatting, but I don't know if I consider this to be cybersquatting. I always thought it was registering a domain that you hoped someone else would want and would be willing to pay money for.

This is a case of taking advantage of mistyped URLs. I agree it is not at all a respectable way of making money, but is it illegal? Should he be punished with fines totaling $500,000? I really don't think so.

Re:Playing Up Damages

[themashby]

Go watch your parents, if they are typical parents, try to use the internet. Watch how slow and cautious they are. If they hit one of these crappy sites they are going to get trapped. They aren't going to know how to get out. This makes the internet something people don't want to use and it will hurt the internet, and net programmers, in the long run. There needs to be standards of conduct but at the same time if we let big business write these laws they will be worded to be used as weapons against smaller competition. Big business has a real stake in making sure they can the internet in such a way that it favors big money. So watch out for exactly how things are worded, be critical, and use your imagination.

Re:Playing Up Damages

[J'raxis]

Not that I support this Anticybersquatting shit but I would like to clarify on this:

"Difficult to leave" is easily acheivable with some simple JavaScript. I've completely bombed both Mac and Windows browsers with an easy enough technique:

BODY ONUNLOAD="window.open(self.location);"

"Don't try this at home." In Windows IE unless you're very fast at ALT-F4ing, you'll need to kill IEXPLORE to murder this thing. And in Macintosh, all-out quitting IE throws the program into an endless loop until it crashes - the browser attempts to close on windows on quit, which triggers the onUnload event... I think you get the picture. Netscape crashes in its usual manner.

Best solution: JavaScript is evil, leave it off.

I am the Raxis.