Slashdot Mirror
Buying a Domain From a Cybersquatter
Nevo writes "A partner and I are in the planning stages of a business. We've decided on a name that we'd like to use but the domain name is already registered. The owner has a single 'search' page up (similar to the one at www.goggle.com)... clearly not a legitimate business interest, but since we don't own a trademark on this name it doesn't qualify as bad faith, I don't think. Does anyone have any experience buying domains from these operators? Do you have any advice on how to approach the owners of these domains to get them at a reasonable cost?"
I agree with the anonymous coward above. Your coworker is scum.
You refer to 'your' domains as 'property', and ascribe the anger directed at you to jealousy. You err on both accounts.
A domain is nothing more than an entry in a database meant to direct a seeker to something useful. The domain is not 'property' - the database as a whole is. And you do not own it.
Your function is not to provide something useful, but to interfere with the intended use of the database. You are not selling property - you are offering to remove your interference for a fee. Your 'business model' is little different than piling rocks on a road and then offering to let drivers pass for a fee.
As proof of this, ICANN offers a procedure for relief from bottom-feeders like you. Unfortunately the procedure is lengthy and expensive enough that most find it easier to simply pay the troll to cross the bridge.
In short, the only product that you have to offer anyone is your absence - the permanent state of which cannot come soon enough.
In other words - fuck off and die.
Why are they scumbags?
If I was in a town, and there was an empty lot on the corner of McDonalds and Main streets, I would buy it hoping McDonalds would want to put a restaurant their.
If they did and I made a tidy some everyone would say I was a smart businessman. Do the same with domains and it's some how 'wrong'?
There is nothing wrong with what they are doing. You may not like it, but to damn bad.
Outlawing this practice is outrages, a waste of the courts time, the waste of out legislators time and pretty much pointless.
How do you define a cybersquatter in a manner that separates people you think our cybersquatters from people you think are legitimate?
Add to this they are not squatters. A squatter is someone who goes into a home they didn't pay to be at and refuse to leave. These people paid to do this, if anything they are capitalists, just like any person who buys and sells land is.
Perhaps CyberBaron might be more accurate.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What the heck do you mean you don't agree the definition of cybersquatting? Cybersquatting is very clearly defined. If you buy a domain you have no intention of using, other than to resell at a higher price, you are cybersquatting. You are buying domains with the intention of reselling them at a higher price, ergo you are a cybersquatter.
Don't try to dodge the ball here, you are a cybersquatter plain and simple. Whether or not that makes you scum is left up to the reader - for the record I think you are a dirt bag. Others may not. Even though I think you are a dirt bag, I understand your logic (and the logic of the rest of the cybersquatting world) and appreciate it, even if I don't agree with it. Cybersquatters are bottom feeders, plain and simple ... but the bottom feeders exist because the system allows them to exist. The system needs to be fixed and the problem of dirt bags like you goes away. I don't blame you for being a dirt bag, it's just who you are. We, as keepers of the internet, need to make it so you can't survive. Ultimately, it is our fault for designing a system that allows bottom feeders like you to exist, when we have the control and capability to make your environment hostile to your sort of life.