Cybersquatting
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.
The term is derived from "squatting", which is the act of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. Cybersquatting, however, is a bit different in that the domain names that are being "squatted" are (sometimes but not always) is paid for through the registration process by the cybersquatters. Cybersquatters usually ask for prices far greater than that at which they purchased it. Some cybersquatters put up derogatory remarks about the person or company the domain is meant to represent in an effort to encourage the subject to buy the domain from them.[citation needed] Others post paid links via Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com and other paid advertising networks to the actual site that the user likely wanted, thus monetizing their squatting.
It is actually the act of registering a popular Internet address–usually a company name–with the intent of selling it to its rightful owner.Comparing cybersquatting to online extortion, Senator Spencer Abraham, a Michigan Republican, has introduced to Congress the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. This bill, if enacted, would make cybersquatting illegal. Violators would be charged a fine of up to Rs. 10,00,000.
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has also outlined anti-cybersquatting tactics, which have been endorsed by ICANN (Ironically enough, someone recently registered http://www.wipo.com in order to sell it back to WIPO for several thousand dollars).Even though legislation has not been enacted, almost all cybersquatting court-case decisions are against cybersquatters.
Since there is an initial and yearly fee for owning a domain name, some cybersquatters reserve a long list of names and defer paying for them until forced to – preempting their use by others at no cost to themselves. The registry companies are working on this problem. Meanwhile, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which licenses the domain name registrars, is working on a process for resolving domain name disagreements outside of the regular court system. Although trademark laws may offer some protection, it is often cheaper to buy the domain name from the cybersquatter than it is to sue for its use.
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