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US House of Reps. Bans "Cybersquatting"
sredding writes "The House has voted to ban "cybersquatting", the pre-empting of Internet domain names with the aim of selling those names to companies or people with trademark associations to them. " Sounds nice right? Well, there maybe some downsides to the bill. The Clinton Administration, however, opposes the bill, saying courts are the best place to settle disputes.
http://www.acm.org/usacm/trademark.html
The big fear seems to revolve around the $100k penalty - even if no damages are found to occur. That sort of threat could force a small business to simply give up - rather than face costly legal battles and possible large fines.
The ICANN policy which submits disagreements to arbitration (paid for by the complainant) seems a lot more likely to be fair to smaller organizations.
Anyway, with the regular caveat that "I am not a lawyer (IANAL)... I think I am with the majority on the idea that "cybersquatting" is bad, however, I don't think that there is really an effective legal remedy to the problem. Here's why:
- Because the courts have generally held that parody is a protected form of free speech, some or all of this law may in fact be unconstitutional.
- Leaving it to the courts doesn't necessarily work either, because often, the side with the most legal $ wins.
- Calling a domain name "intellectual property" is deceptive as well, because in reality, a domain name is just an "advertising cover" for an IP address.
- This leaves the gray area of trademark infringement as the only valid area of law that I can think of which covers the problem.
The only thing that I can think of that might work is for the domain registrars to include a provision in their registration documents for binding arbitration in the event of a contested domain name. Please correct me if I am wrong, but this would mostly take the issue out of the courts, and seems like it would be a useful remedy for the majority of the "cybersquatting" problems which might come up in the future. (I don't know how this would apply to previously registered domains, unless it was made a requirement upon renewel of the registration)Comments anyone?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Yeah, and when they threaten to take you to court, and you find out that if they win, you could be fined $100,000.00, you are going to be MUCH less likely to stand by your principles.
In short, this bill puts a huge weapon in the hands of big corporations to intimidate the little guys and force them to give up their domain names.
Would the guy who successfully won the battle over "clue.com" have done so if the stakes were so high?
1. Eliminate the 90 day grace period for payment. A lot of squatters are using scripts to re-register every 90 days to keep names without ever paying. Make it so it must be payable (by CC) up front at time of registration.
.inc, .sex, .usa, .etc, and at least 20 to 40 more) many of which are pretty catchy sounding and would water-down the value of .com making it less attractive to snap up in the first place. To grab exclusivity on a domain name would mean having to grab ALL the extensions which could be difficult and expensive. (especially if you have to pay up front like suggestion #1)
2. Create a FLOOD of easily available 3 letter extensions (.biz,
If somebody registers a domain to sell it, good for them. They got there first. If it really is a problem, and Internic's functions will soon be apportioned out to several companies who will compete for registration, I imagine that cybersquatting could become much like spam. Maybe this is optimistic, but most people don't tolerate spam...even though it makes lots of money, so most probably registration services probably wouldn't tolerate cybersquatting (you rent it, but we own it - no subletting!). MegaCorpX.com should still, for there own interests, be allowed to gobble up MegaCorpXSucks.com, ScrewMegaCorpX.com and IHateMegaCorpX.com.
.sig's that seem to agree with this).
Thank you, but this legislation is far too socialist for my taste. I don't like cybersquatting, so I won't endorse it. But this legislation is ridiculous - "You cannot register a domain name that could be confused w/ someone else's? Physical addresses are confusing, but they're allowed to look similar. No, this is bad news in the long run, because its just more restrictions on the net. This is bad medicine.
I don't think this legislation is even necessary. It's kinda like spam, people really just need to become a policy like "I never purchase anything advertised in unsolicited mail". I know I wouldn't get a domain name from anyone but Internic. So, if you come out with Pooky, and someone's registered Pooky.com, then you go out and get PookyWorld.com or something like that - don't offer to buy Pooky.com. Take pixel.com as a great example. Prime real estate - not used for anything. Cybersquatter? Not in my book: squatting is when you don't pay for something - you're just there.
I probably sound like a squatter myself by now, but I'm not. Squatting is bad, but its better than banning it. (And I've seen the documented
"Kill the head and the body dies." - Hunter S. Thompson
On the one hand, I can't stand cybersquatters, who do abolutely nothing with the domain, but just wait for a catch. How many times have you been to a website that says "still under contruction" or "this domain has been parked"? It is also painful to see time/money wasted in courts to straighten out these people.
But, on the other hand, laws like these only make the situation more precarious. Trademark holders are certainly going to abuse the power, bringing more innocent people to their knees. Has "slashdot" been trademarked? If not, what prevents an organization from registering the trademark (even much later), and then bringing charges against Rob Malda? I know the Cyberpiracy Act is supposed to be aimed at cybersquatters, but I fear the power is going to be abused anyway. The Act is not going to reduce litigation by drawing clear lines. It is going to reduce litigation by letting Big Companies intimidate weaker ones.
What is the solution? The simplest thing (and IMHO the best) is to dissociate trademarks from domain names. You say, "Hey, that isn't fair! Apple Inc. should have every right to hold apple.com. It shouldn't be arbitrary!". I say, I don't know about you, but, what I do is this: if I want to find a company/product on the web, I type in a few keywords into a search engine, and then follow links from there. I couldn't care less what URL hosted the website. If I find the site interesting and worth returning to, I bookmark the site. More often than not, I never have to remember the URL or have to type it into a browser. If this is how most people work, then whether or not Apple Inc. holds apple.com is moot. Isn't this how we behave with telephone numbers anyway? I don't bother remembering telephone numbers most of the time. I just check the yellow pages as necessary. All that matters is the search engine/directory.
Sreeram.
The bill's sponsors, Representatives James Rogan (R-California) and Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) say it will boost consumer confidence in legitimate e-commerce companies.
umm, what does that have to do with protecting consumers? Comsumer confidence?, WTF! If they were "a legitimate e-commerce company", they'd already own their domain. That's all this is, a way for government to protect slow-moving behemoth corporations that didn't realize that the Internet was a big deal. My guess would be that Rogan and Boucher met with a number of businessmen in their states who compained about somebody taking their god-given right to a domain name, regardless if someone else might have a use for it, after they (like the former CEO of my company) said "the Internet is a fad". There is no need for this type of legislation. We already have copyright/trademark law. Why make more laws? (oh, yeah, they are "lawmakers", harrumph)
+&x
Everyone seems worried about how this will stop people registering similar-looking names... that's not the problem.
The problem is those enterprising guys who get in fast with a useful domain, run a legitimate site off it, and then attract the attention of The Big Guy(tm). Big Guy hits Little Guy with a lawsuit. It doesn't matter whether or not the lawsuit has a hope of winning, or whether the claim is legitimate. Little Guy invariably doesn't have the resources to defend himself, and so must give up the domain by default.
Now I know nothing about the American legal system, and the CNN article doesn't give me much insight. But the way I read it, if the bill makes it a criminal offense, then it's up to the US equivalent of the Director of Public Prosecutions to follow up. This would mean that the decision to prosecute lies with an essentially neutral third party - who is much more likely to decide that an individual is making real use of a domain and is not interested in selling - rather than the lawyers of Big Guy who will happily take the risk of losing on the basis that they probably won't have to fight the case at all.
If, on the other hand, it's a civil matter, then this is just one more weapon for the Big Guy on top of trademark infringement, and a completely redundant one at that. Oh well.
Dave
--
I've been watching this debate for a while, and like most (rational) people I've come to the conclusion that it's a bad thing. Unfortunately, it does sound reasonable. The Guardian had a story on the subject (registration may be required; can't remember) that points out how nasty those cybersquatting bastards are, so the politicians are pandering to the laziness in everyone who couldn't be arsed digging beyond the superficial squatiness of bradpitt.com.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Let's say you love white horses. Off you go with www.whitehorse.org. Is that too close to whitehouse.gov?
What I'm saying is, it's downright silly to do this, because it's unenforceable. You'll always stumble upon examples of domain names that closely resemble an official one, but only as a coincidence. That means it's a law that'll have to be debated over and over again before the media.
Secondly, what about fair use? Isn't it fair use to do a parody site? If it is, then what about a parody site with a parody domain name to go with it?
The truth of the matter is, the Government feels that people are going to the wrong domain names because they can't tell a Government site from a normal site. So what? The same happens if you dial a Government phone number and end up dialing Luigi's pizza by mistake. Should they ban phone numbers closely resembling Government numbers, too?
Third, why is the Government allowed to protect the integrity of their websites, whereas the user cannot? What says that the US Government can have precedence when it comes to choosing a DNS entry?
Imagine, for instance, that the Government launches a site called 'www.slashdot.gov'. Can they then, were that bill passed, claim that Slashdot.org is using an illegal DNS entry? Why can't it be the opposite?
Let's hope this law is shot down before it becomes a reality. Not that I worry too much: it's gonna be unenforceable anyway.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Assuming this passes...
Say Joe Schmoe from Finland has a 'great' idea, registers someproduct.com, and pisses off company X, cause they have a trademark with 'someproduct'?
Whos gonna handle this? The US? Does the US have jurisdicton in other countries like that? Does this bill only 'work' if both parties reside in the States?
-----
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
Augh.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
It's so frustrating to hear things like "The place for domain disputes is in the courtroom." I don't know about anyone else, but quite frankly I'm fed up with my tax dollars being wasted on useless lawsuits. I don't want to help pay a judge's salary so that he/she can preside over these frivilous suits. Personally I'm rather torn on the issue. If someone is truly just squatting for the cash that might be made, smack them. That's just abuse of the system of freedom all of us have found and fought to protect with the Internet. But if you're using the domain for a legitimate purpose, and some corporate bully wants to yank it, I draw the line. Like AJ Reznor, a man who has every right to keep his domain regardless of what Thomas & Betts says.
.com domain supposed to be for commercial use? Hence the "com"? Thus, it makes at least logical sense that, unless the site is being put to commercial use, a company should have prevalance over personal webspace. Is this the case? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. Is this becoming more fuel for the opening of other domain extensions?
On the other hand, isn't the
None of the scenarios anyone has presented look (to my untrained eye, at any rate) like they're covered:
Read the bill. The last time this came up, a number of people noted that it was actually well written.
You're not squatting; the definition the bill is going by is that you are holding the rights to that domain name to strictly only make money off selling it. Additionally, this doesn't sound like a trademarked name that the battle is over. And you said you also are using said site purposefully and thus aren't 'squatting' on it. You should be in the clear (Of course, IMNAL).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Not exactly the same case, but an interesting thing to compare cybersquatting to.
Francis Hwang
Do domain names matter?
After all, my domain (a .com, even though more and more I'm doing free software now) was taken from my original name for my recording studio.
The name? airwindows.com.
You tell me a certain entity isn't going to consider everything with those latter seven letters their property... I'm depending on (1) apathy, and (2) my right to sit on the name as it is MY trademark dammit, and I registered the domain over a year ago and have been using the name in business since 1994.
There's no way I can possibly take anything to court, so if I do get trouble my only option is to make publicity. I just hope that is never, ever necessary.
You know, putting two and two together, I wonder if all this legal crap of late regarding the web is due to the bitterness that e-commerce has on not sucking up the web before.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
When one schmo buys up a number of names that *just happen* to all coincide to what very large investment banks want, and these names *just happen* to have absolutely nothing to do with the schmo's business (personal or commercial), and then *just happens* to call up the investment banks and solicit large (re: multiple orders of magnitude greater than the original price) amounts of money for the domains, which *aren't* being used -- it's pretty darn clear.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The text of the bill can be found at
t emp/~c106sheYoO::
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c106:1:./
This is the "Introduced in the House" version. The "Reported in the House" version is also available.
Got a business plan there?
I think that the law prevents you from trademarking something that is aready in use, much like the case with the idiot who tried to trademark Linux.
Still, you are in better shape if you go the official route. There are trademark web sites that you can use to search for existing trademarks, and get information on how to register your own trademerk.
Hmm.. he's a lawyer.. his wife's a lawyer... most of his friends are lawyers... I wonder if there's a connection?
I hate to clue you in like this, but the fact is that 90+% of elected officials in the US are lawyers. It is not unique to the Clintons. Putting lawyers in charge of making the laws is like giving Doctors the power to make diseases. Republican or Democrat, there is no difference in this regard.
Huey Long gave a wonderful speech in the 30's where he describe the difference between the two political parties as two mule skinners working to skin the mule. One starts at the head and works down, the other starts at the feet and works up.
As a former and very insightful boss of mine once noted, the legal profession of the US has become an industry in it's own right. It is self-sustaining and self-perpetuating all on it's own. There is nothing that you or I can do to combat this without radically changing our society.
Any action in the United States requires that it pass both the House and the Senate...
...then it must be signed by the Executive. /. readers who would be affected by this bill (ie US citizens) have already completed their 8th-grade civics course and understand the situation.
From the linked article: "The Senate in August approved a similar bill..."
I think that it's safe for Hemos to assume that the vast majority of
The House cannot "ban" anything.
Au contrair. Spending measures must originate in the House. The House thus has the explicit power to ban specific instances government spending or taxation by not passing the bills that would make it possible. In practice, this is a moot point...
A text file of HR 3028 can be found at ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp106/hr4 12.txt
First go to Thomas. At the top there is a search for specific bills. You are looking today for either S. 1255 [the Senate version] or H.R. 3028. I found those numbers by going into the Congressional Record, selecting the most recent issue (i.e. yesterday when the deed was done), selecting the Daily Digest hyperlink, zipping down to the House of Representatives, and finding the bill entitled "Preventing the Misappropriation of Marks". Right there is all the information I needed: which bills and what action was taken. In fact, there are hyperlinks to the text of the bills right there. But I was interested in what the representatives actually said about them, so I chose the hyperlink where it says Pages. This led me to the official transcript of the action on the floor. That in itself was very interesting. Those pages also contained the text of the two bills as read by the Clerk.
Again I would like to urge all /.ers to learn how to use this free resource to keep an eye on the Congress. The initiative for Thomas was spearheaded by Newt Gingrich; in my eyes, that almost makes up for his cockamamie Contract On America.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
That's just oh-so-bright. So if you want to squat, do it thru an overseas company. I truely don't see where they think they're going with this. They can't 'abolish' squating on the internet, they can simply force the squaters to dummy offshore companies they setup for 50$.
Gambling on the inetrnet is also illegal. Look at how well THAT'S worked..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
"You cannot register a domain name that could be confused w/ someone else's? Physical addresses are confusing, but they're allowed to look similar."
This cracked me up and made me think of what would happen if cities were allowed to sue because another city had taken its name.
PORTLAND, MA- "Here in Portland, Maine we are suffering because Portland, Oregon gets much more attention than we do... but WE HAD THE NAME FIRST!"
PORTLAND, OR- "But we made the name popular! Sure, you had the name first... but what were you DOING with it?"
Talk about cry babies.
~m
Now, IANAL, but I do know that different companies can trademark the same name so long as they aren't competing in the same market. What constitutes "bad faith?" Is it possible that the small company who chooses a similar trademark for a legitimate, yet non-competitive product to lose their domain name through this bill? What if the company who wants the domain claims that even though the products do not compete, the registered company chose that name simply to increase their own name recognition?
It seems that every time there is a law passed someone looses. Of course this is they way of the world. I'll agree the idea of cybersquatting is bad. People buying a site to demand money from a company is bad in my opinion. But what sites that are slightly more common names. For instance wasn't Terrel Davis (of the Broncos) complaining about www.davis.com because they use his name? Should I complain about www.donohue.com because it uses my last name? In some cases there are more than one company with the same. (Its legal as long as the companies don't do the same things) Which one gets the domain name? Or those with initials that are the same? I dunno I'd have to see the entire bill to decide if I like it, but for now I have to agree that it should stay in the courts.
-cpd
The House cannot "ban" anything. Any action in the United States requires that it pass both the House and the Senate then it must be signed by the Executive. The only exceptions to this are treaties and executive appointments which must be ratified by the Senate.
I'll probably find myself in the minority here, but I can't see anything wrong with cybersquatting.
Let's see. Internet by now is part of the "real world". The real world mostly plays by the rules called capitalism. In particular, this means that valuable things (assets) should be freely bought and sold with their value being determined by the marketplace.
Now, Internet names are, by now, certainly assets -- they have value and it is possible to buy and sell them. Given that, I don't see anything wrong with people or companies accumulating these assets and then selling them to the highest bidder. After all, that's the way market works.
There is already quite sufficient protection for the copyrighted items and trademarks. This new law applies the doctrine of "use it or lose it" to domain names and I don't see any economic necessity for it. What this law does is give another heavy blunt weapon to large entities (mostly corporations) with which to beat over the head smaller entities (mostly individuals and small organizations). Lawyers should be happy.
People dislike cybersquatting because it would be unacceptable behavior in academic/research setting, and because there is perception of unfairness: these guys paid $70 for the domain name and want to sell it for $10,000! Unfair!
The first objection is no longer valid -- Internet, to repeat myself, now firmly belongs to the "real world" where a lot of stuff that would be ethically unacceptable in a university is legal and happens all the time. As to the second point -- life is unfair, deal with it. Do you think the Saudis deserved in any way those huge pools of oil underneath their sands? Besides, those cybersquatters demonstrated quickness of thinking and action, plus entrepreneurial instincts -- what's wrong with this?
I think two kinds of groups complain about cybersquatting. The first one is people who pine for the good old days when the Internet was basically a research network, unknown and not accessible to the unwashed masses, and domain names could be had for asking. The second one is large corporations which want to take what they want and if they happened to step on somebody in the meantime, so what. I am fairly sure who pushed for this law to be adopted.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
The name allocation rules for AFNIC (the NIC for *.fr) are located in English here (in PDF format). The naming convention starts on page 13. The original French is here.
.fr: asso.fr, presse.fr, prd.fr, nom.fr, tm.fr and the names of certain professions have been blocked for registration (e.g. barreau.fr, notaire.fr.) AFNIC rejects names that correspond to common first names, trades or commercial domains, names of towns and regions, any domain that starts with the letter 'd' followed by a number (because that's how departments are frequently abbreviated.) Also, they will reject domains like net.fr, internet.fr, http.fr and other common net abbreviations. There is a com.fr domain, which requires no justifying documents at all to register - but it seems to be a recent development.
.fr can only obtain a maximum of 3 domains, and those names have to appear on the organisation's Kbis (an official registration document required to do business in France). All associations have to register under asso.fr, and only companies with French trademarks can register under tm.fr.
.com, .org, .net rules) and for the most part make sense. It results in fewer domain registrations, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing, certainly it keeps the top level domain from getting cluttered. It does makes domain squatting nearly impossible.
/.'er prefer the free-for-all of the current system, but as someone currently trying to obtain a decent domain for a business venture under .com, I would certainly prefer the French rules.
.com is seen as the only respectable way to go. The system for three-letter domains has been bad for a long time, and I wonder if the only way to fix it would be to either phase out or eliminate altogether the .com, .net and .org domains.
In short, there are certain manditory subdomains in
Anyone registring directly under
The rules are really fairly straight forward (although much longer than the
I know, a lot of
Unfortunately, nothing will change so long as
Bah! The truth is that people are just now starting to realize that .com is big business, and they're (we're?) all kicking themselves for not having had the foresight to register food.com, pets.com, news.com, cbs.com, etc... six or seven years ago.
Waa! Waa! somebody was quicker and smarter than me and stole my god-given right to own $MY_COMPANY_NAME.com .
Waa! Waa! I want to live in Beverly Hills, but I can't afford it. Please, Mr. Government... make them lower the rent in Beverly Hills... I have a RIGHT to live there
Waa! Waa! Somebody beat me to San Francisco and found all of the gold that I was supposed to find. Please, Mr. Government, make them share the gold they found.
Waa! Waa! The DeBeers family owns all of the diamonds in the world, and keeps the prices artificially high. Please, Mr Government, take at least half of the diamonds away from the DeBeers family so that I can buy lots of cheap diamonds.
Waa! Waa! The US Land Grant Act gave all of the good Silicon Valley land away FOR FREE many years ago, and I didn't get any. Please, Mr Government, take away the land from the Big companies in the silicon valley and re-apportion it, and give some to me.
Waa! Waa! All of the 3 character domain combinations are already registered and I didn't get $MY_INITIALS.[com,org,net] . How can I continue living?
Waa! Waa! BBC wanted bbc.com really bad, so they paid a million dollars for it, and now they're happy
How much do you think I'd have to pay BBC to get BBC.com from them?
Are you starting to get the picture?
What downsides? Well, to start off with, it ONLY protects trademark owners, at least from what i've read on the bill in question. That specific issue is already resolved by existing trademark law, and even if this bill is passed, it seems likely that the parties involved will still end up in court.
Hopefully, if this thing becomes law, the courts won't interpret it to mean "you can no longer register trademarked words, even if you have no malicious intent
This WILL happen if it gets passed, and seems to be another step towards degrading fair usage for parodies, etc. Also, even as it stands now, even if you do register a trademarked name with no malicious intent, it's likely that you will be relieved of that via the courts, though it does depend on alot of stuff.
It really seems to me that this is merely yet another example of the gov't pandering to corporate interests. Unfortunately it seems like this law actually solves nothing that existing law does not, and Clinton is probably right in saying that the issue is best resolved in the courts (though that idea was probably 'suggested' by the law lobby)
I find domain squatting to be a gross abuse of the system, similar to buying large tracts of land and sitting on them, hoping the area becomes a popular place for development, though there are alot of differences. The extremely low cost of entry is one. I really don't see being able to completely remove the practice. Eventually it will become very costly to maintain all those domains they register, i'm sure a couple decent sized companies will still manage to make money off of it though, i think it's called 'the price of doing business'. Personally it sickens me, but then again, doing business is really unpleasant.
that company just buys domain names and does nothing with them that is cyber squating.
Somehow, I think this bill will help the squatters. Before, they could only sell names based on the perceived value of just the name. Everyone knows they were just squatting on it, waiting for it to hatch.
Now, they will buy these names, make some hooey company or something to make the domain seem legit to skirt this law. When time comes to sell it, they can claim it has more value, because there are already current vested business interests from all the chrome added to the domain.
Trademark infringement is already illegal. The only real new thing here is that if a company can't find the infringer, they can still kill the registration. This may not stand up in court, as it seems to me that it denies due process (a constitutional guarantee).
But IANAL, so someone else may be able to point out that the above is a bunch of bull.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
I read this article on ZDNET , and they made the interesting point that this might affect websites
that use a trademarked word in the title, so websites like ihatemicrosoft.com could face legal action.
I guess free speech only matters to those who can afford it.
I am in favor of such regulations, however it doesn't really work for something as global as domain registration. Afterall a lot of Americans still think that if they pass a law regarding the internet, that it is valid for the whole world.
But regardless of that, I think they are not going far enough. How about people who buy up sites, in the hope they can make a profit later, even if it is not related to specific company name?
Ever been to www.arj.com recently? I mean we have enough junk on the net as it is. Also names that have been bought, but no (web)sites are ever set up for them.
I just think the internet is cluttering up much to fast (think usenet and spam) and it would be good to have some type off weed-out mechanism for domain names. Maybe restructure the whole thing, make it geographically sound, only giving companies _1_ domain name, giving people a free url like myname.people.us and such. 'Cause the longer you wait with such things, the harder it gets to change (640Kb is enough for everybody!)
-- Ren
So...
In my case, some person approached me for my domain (which I was using) to purchase it. I declined on the first try. He repeatedly emails me a couple more times, phones my house(! I guess since I have my resume online, he thinks he has a right to call me and annoy -- luckily I wasn't home), and I keep declining over email. I try to give him alternatives, but he sites other sales (download.com, etc) instead. Finally he says "final offer" and I am finally relieved that this guy is going to leave me alone.
Does this mean I'm not a "squatter" since I didn't sell and I have no intention whatsoever to sell ever?
Of course, if someone offered me $1,000,000 for it, would that make me a squatter since I would sell it?
I hate this bloody term ["squatting"]. The House of Reps should do something more productive like get re-do the out-of-whack welfare system in the US and stay the hell away from my computer.
-m
While some people are not going to like this, here's what i think to be a good solution for cybersquatting: a good heirarchy. .com, .net, and .org . there should be a .co.us and .net.us instead. .com?
first, scrap
the whole idea of a global domain pool is stupid, esp. when it coexists with a wide selection of TLDs.
what would be so wrong with com.us or net.us for us-only companies, instead of
now, if companies were allowed to register only in their respective heirarchy, wouldn't most problems be solved?
also, the attempt to divide domains into 4 or 5 major types is also rather silly. why not have lots of domain types?
there are so many reasons why one would want to register a domain, making the current division unsuitable.
this is also already being attempted: see the GTLD project and iDNS for such attempts.
the more domains available, the less options there are for squatting, and the more fair the sharing becomes.
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this message is quad-rot13 encrypted for your privacy.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"