Cybersquatting - A Dirty Word

One of the worst things you can call a domainer is a "Cybersquatter".

This dirty word first came about in the 1990's after unscrupulous people decided that they would register a multitude of trademarked and popular trading names.

They would then point these well known brand names to hardcore porn sites, hoping that a big name company would come along and offer big money for the domain name.

In some cases, it actually worked. But that was the old days, before trademark lawyers got involved.

There are still a few rogues about, just as there in any industry, but in the main, the vast majority of domainers I know would never dream of registering a trademarked name.

Put simply, there is no need for anyone to do this. There is enough money to be made in the domain name game by playing straight, so why make life difficult for yourself with big money corporate lawyers chasing after you?

It's interesting then, to see an article appear in Business Week about cybersquatting.

Yet again, some rookie journalist trying to make a name for herself, incorrectly labels an innocent party of being a cybersquatter, just because they registered a generic domain name before somebody else got the chance.

This is a link to full the cybersquatter article.

The "journalist" concerned even cites the ages old "business.com" deal that never really was in her article - so that proves how naive she is!

She then goes on to discuss a start up business as follows:

"Jon and Jeff Seymour found that Persona, their
first-choice name for their localized Web browser, was already trademarked.
Their second choice, Fave, wasn't—but Fave.com was held by a cybersquatter.
After the owner turned down their multiple five-figure offers, the Seymours
decided to register GetFave.com instead."

Let's examine the facts.

Jon and Jeff couldn't register the name "persona.com" - of course they couldn't!

It's a common, generic word - it was snapped up years ago. What the heck did they expect?

In fact, persona.com is a dating site. Interestingly, the "journalist" didn't refer to them as cybersquatters!

They then went for the "second choice".

Er... let's see. A five letter word called "fave". A common abbreviation for favourite.

The owner of fave.com parks his name under the banner, "cyberfinder.com".

Many domain owners park their names. They do this because it would be virtually impossible to develop a large portfolio.

Domain parking allows a portfolio owner to earn money from an unused domain, rather than letting it sit dormant and actually being a cost to his business.

Think of this analogy.

You own a piece of land in a city centre. (A good domain name is like having a prime piece of land). It is just a piece of land. It has buildings all around it, but in order to build something on it, you need to speculate and spend a lot of money. You know the potential for the land, because you can see what others have done in the same area.

However, because of the financial risk and the fact that you have to pay rates on the empty land, you decide to allow commuters to park on the land and pay an hourly or daily fee.

Nobody will criticise you for that. In fact, a prime location car park, even if it is only a scrap of land, would be quite a desirable thing to own.

I think I would like to own a city centre car park.

However, I can't afford to buy one.

I CAN afford a domain portfolio. Most of my names get developed into something at some stage, but there simply aren't enough hours in the day to keep building web sites and keeping them fresh with content.

So what does a domainer do?

He (or she) puts up a car park. It's called "domain parking". When visitors stumble onto the site, they are presented with a number of links.

If they see something relevant to what they were looking for, they will click the link and get paid by the parking company.

Typically companies like Google and other major search engines are behind the pay per click model, because they understand the value of a good domain - quite simply, it represents premium traffic.

Sadly, Kerry Miller of Business Week doesn't get it.

Instead she slanders the good name of business people who had the foresight to register a name several years before somebody decided that they wanted to start a business.

Enough to make you weep isn't it?