20 Mar, 2008, Sandi wrote in the 2nd comment:
I feel your pain. We almost lost our game's domain due to an email change, but our ISP guy (ISU) was on the ball and caught it.
I tried to warn people about the World Wide Web, but nobody listened. Got some spare time? Need more advertising in your life? Get a web browser. :biggrin:
I tried to warn people about the World Wide Web, but nobody listened. Got some spare time? Need more advertising in your life? Get a web browser. :biggrin:
20 Mar, 2008, Guest wrote in the 3rd comment:
Mabus, I know all too well what that kind of thing is like. I ran into it as well at one point, though under different circumstances. You have to be very careful with domains these days. Always have to make sure that they're locked so unknown transfers to cybersquatting scum can't be done without your knowledge and such.
Relying on ICANN and/or WIPO to resolve a dispute is a waste of time and money. That $1500 is non-refundable and flies right out the window even if nothing comes of it. Keep in mind, both organizations are ultimately corporations, which means they exist to make money one way or another. They have no real stake in anything.
Relying on ICANN and/or WIPO to resolve a dispute is a waste of time and money. That $1500 is non-refundable and flies right out the window even if nothing comes of it. Keep in mind, both organizations are ultimately corporations, which means they exist to make money one way or another. They have no real stake in anything.
20 Mar, 2008, Davion wrote in the 4th comment:
::sniffs trying to grasp at mudbytes.com but it's just out of reach:: Big screw you to godaddy
20 Mar, 2008, Zeno wrote in the 5th comment:
I got biyg.net and biyg.org but somehow missed biyg.com, bleh.
21 Mar, 2008, Guest wrote in the 6th comment:
Davion said:
::sniffs trying to grasp at mudbytes.com but it's just out of reach:: Big screw you to godaddy
Yes, that would have been nice. That was my mistake when registering mudbytes.net. Not getting the .com or the .org, both of which are now in the hands of cybersquatters who are welcomed with open arms by GoDaddy.
21 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 7th comment:
Cybersquatters are "welcomed" by basically all registrars – I don't think this is GoDaddy's fault in particular. It's perhaps ICANN's. But even then, if somebody doesn't register a name, it's very difficult to argue that they own it by virtue of registering other names. Difficult situation for everybody, but the real losers are the people who can't afford to prosecute or buy out the people squatting their domain(s).
21 Mar, 2008, Guest wrote in the 8th comment:
The real losers are those of us who buy domain names to use for legitimate purposes who have to shell out 3x as much ( .com/net/org ) in order to protect the identity a domain name creates. ICANN cannot stop it because they are not a government agency. This is one of those few places where government regulation and prohibition would be useful. Cybersquatters are like drug dealers. You can't file injunctions against them and you can't sue them in court to get a positive result. They just flee elsewhere. Now granted, the same has already happened with cybersquatters too. So it may already be too late to do anything about it, short of nuking China or something.
21 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 9th comment:
Why is it that purchasing one domain should entitle anybody to all suffixes? Of course it would be nice, but why should people get to control a name plus all suffixes just because they bought one suffix?
ICANN could stop it if it was in their mandate to do so – they don't have to be a government agency. But it's not in their mandate, and, well, frankly, that's probably a good thing, because I'm not sure it would be appropriate for them to decide who gets to own which names.
I fully agree though that cybersquatters are scum of the Internet: they buy domains purely to hold them hostage, and the usage they make of them is parasitic on other sites. "Typosquatting" is a similar practice: register a domain that looks like the real one and get the people who make typos.
Then you get registrars who employ the scummy practice of looking at domains that people search for, and if they don't buy it, the registrar buys it themselves under the assumption that somebody will want it and they can sell it to that person at a higher price. But I guess that's supply and demand for you…
It will be interesting to see what happens, if anything, with domain name regulation. At some point or another it'll go under some kind of world oversight, as everything about the Internet will; it'll just be interesting to see what policies are put into place to deal with this kind of problem.
ICANN could stop it if it was in their mandate to do so – they don't have to be a government agency. But it's not in their mandate, and, well, frankly, that's probably a good thing, because I'm not sure it would be appropriate for them to decide who gets to own which names.
I fully agree though that cybersquatters are scum of the Internet: they buy domains purely to hold them hostage, and the usage they make of them is parasitic on other sites. "Typosquatting" is a similar practice: register a domain that looks like the real one and get the people who make typos.
Then you get registrars who employ the scummy practice of looking at domains that people search for, and if they don't buy it, the registrar buys it themselves under the assumption that somebody will want it and they can sell it to that person at a higher price. But I guess that's supply and demand for you…
It will be interesting to see what happens, if anything, with domain name regulation. At some point or another it'll go under some kind of world oversight, as everything about the Internet will; it'll just be interesting to see what policies are put into place to deal with this kind of problem.
21 Mar, 2008, Guest wrote in the 10th comment:
Why should honest people be forced to buy up the usual 3 suffixes because we allow scumbags to profit from obvious fraud?
ICANN can't stop jack shit, the Registerfly case is a prime example of this. What went on there *IS* within their mandate and they allowed it to blow up anyway. If they can't stop the full scale meltdown of an entire registry they have no hope of stopping cybersquatters from profiteering on the internet.
As far as regulation goes, I would oppose any "world" oversight since that inevitably means UN involvement and they've proven to be just as ineffective at solving anything as ICANN is now.
ICANN can't stop jack shit, the Registerfly case is a prime example of this. What went on there *IS* within their mandate and they allowed it to blow up anyway. If they can't stop the full scale meltdown of an entire registry they have no hope of stopping cybersquatters from profiteering on the internet.
As far as regulation goes, I would oppose any "world" oversight since that inevitably means UN involvement and they've proven to be just as ineffective at solving anything as ICANN is now.
22 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 11th comment:
It's not a question of honest vs. dishonest people; it's a question of what you're purchasing. You don't buy x.*: you buy x.y. It's like buying a parking garage permit: you get one space for one car. You don't get to buy one space, and then claim that you can park all of your cars in the garage.
As for world involvement, well, it doesn't really matter what you or I want; what matters is that the Internet has become a global entity and is only going to get more and more global. Eventually there will need to be policy decisions made by the network as a whole, not by any one country. It doesn't have to be the UN: there's no need to fixate on the UN as the overseer. Even so, the UN, ponderous and slow as it might be, is more likely to be able to address world concerns than ICANN is. ICANN doesn't even have a clear international mandate to begin with. (Well, the whole Internet isn't really all that clear in terms of who sets global policy. It just sort of "happened"…)
As for world involvement, well, it doesn't really matter what you or I want; what matters is that the Internet has become a global entity and is only going to get more and more global. Eventually there will need to be policy decisions made by the network as a whole, not by any one country. It doesn't have to be the UN: there's no need to fixate on the UN as the overseer. Even so, the UN, ponderous and slow as it might be, is more likely to be able to address world concerns than ICANN is. ICANN doesn't even have a clear international mandate to begin with. (Well, the whole Internet isn't really all that clear in terms of who sets global policy. It just sort of "happened"…)
22 Mar, 2008, syn wrote in the 12th comment:
DavidHaley said:
It's not a question of honest vs. dishonest people; it's a question of what you're purchasing. You don't buy x.*: you buy x.y. It's like buying a parking garage permit: you get one space for one car. You don't get to buy one space, and then claim that you can park all of your cars in the garage.
As for world involvement, well, it doesn't really matter what you or I want; what matters is that the Internet has become a global entity and is only going to get more and more global. Eventually there will need to be policy decisions made by the network as a whole, not by any one country. It doesn't have to be the UN: there's no need to fixate on the UN as the overseer. Even so, the UN, ponderous and slow as it might be, is more likely to be able to address world concerns than ICANN is. ICANN doesn't even have a clear international mandate to begin with. (Well, the whole Internet isn't really all that clear in terms of who sets global policy. It just sort of "happened"…)
As for world involvement, well, it doesn't really matter what you or I want; what matters is that the Internet has become a global entity and is only going to get more and more global. Eventually there will need to be policy decisions made by the network as a whole, not by any one country. It doesn't have to be the UN: there's no need to fixate on the UN as the overseer. Even so, the UN, ponderous and slow as it might be, is more likely to be able to address world concerns than ICANN is. ICANN doesn't even have a clear international mandate to begin with. (Well, the whole Internet isn't really all that clear in terms of who sets global policy. It just sort of "happened"…)
I totaly agree
22 Mar, 2008, Asylumius wrote in the 13th comment:
Unless you're a beginner to buying and using domains, you probably have at least some understanding that yourdomain.dyz comes in ten flavors and if you don't buy all ten, someone else is allowed to buy them too. If you go to the store and ask for the green widget but don't buy the red, blue, and yellow widgets, you shouldn't be upset when everyone mistakes the other guys widget with your cool green one.
Point is, we all know how it works and yeah, we all know that even the .com/net/org can be expensive (for some of us, including me!), especially when you tack on WHOIS protection. It is what it is and I know that if I buy a domain I think might grow and be important to me some day that I need to spring for all the domains. I think it's lame but I agree with David, I can't really think of any good legal argument for why it should work any other way.
Squatters are lame, but that doesn't change the fact that the system in place is fair. Maybe a tiny bit broken sometimes, but fair.
Point is, we all know how it works and yeah, we all know that even the .com/net/org can be expensive (for some of us, including me!), especially when you tack on WHOIS protection. It is what it is and I know that if I buy a domain I think might grow and be important to me some day that I need to spring for all the domains. I think it's lame but I agree with David, I can't really think of any good legal argument for why it should work any other way.
Squatters are lame, but that doesn't change the fact that the system in place is fair. Maybe a tiny bit broken sometimes, but fair.
22 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 14th comment:
I think that legal cases could be made for people who hijack domains, or for people who register domain names that are registered trademarks of a company. For instance, a case could be made that if I go register cocacola.com, it really should belong to the corporation instead due to it being registered trademark identity etc.
This gets pretty hairy though given the international nature of these things: if somebody has a trademark in country X, and somebody from country Y registers the name, who decides that there was trademark infringement, and perhaps more importantly, who enforces it? I don't know how trademark law works internationally. Patent law has treaties to handle the international case, but then you get cases of countries who haven't signed them or don't really care about them in the first place…
This gets pretty hairy though given the international nature of these things: if somebody has a trademark in country X, and somebody from country Y registers the name, who decides that there was trademark infringement, and perhaps more importantly, who enforces it? I don't know how trademark law works internationally. Patent law has treaties to handle the international case, but then you get cases of countries who haven't signed them or don't really care about them in the first place…
23 Mar, 2008, Guest wrote in the 15th comment:
Coca Cola has billions of dollars and lots of high priced attorneys with nothing better to do though. The little guy who buys a domain and then gets ass-fucked because cybersquatters bought up the other two that people commonly misuse to try and find him can't do much about it. ICANN being the toothless giant that it is won't do anything about it even when a proper complaint is filed. There's a difference between selling green widgets on the shelf in a store and some shady crook in the alley selling repainted blue ones and trying to pass them off as your green ones. Cybersquatting should be a crime if it isn't already.
23 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 16th comment:
The point wasn't that Coca Cola has more money than the little guy – which is true – but that Coca Cola actually has the registered trademark.
What exactly would you want ICANN to do? What kind of policy would be appropriate? Should the system be changed to be buying just the name, not the suffix?
The problem with cybersquatters is that their activity is not really legitimate. But how do you tell apart somebody who buys a site and truly means to do little with it other than put up ads, vs. a cybersquatter? I fear that any policy that would satisfy what seem to be your needs would have rather negative consequences as well.
What exactly would you want ICANN to do? What kind of policy would be appropriate? Should the system be changed to be buying just the name, not the suffix?
The problem with cybersquatters is that their activity is not really legitimate. But how do you tell apart somebody who buys a site and truly means to do little with it other than put up ads, vs. a cybersquatter? I fear that any policy that would satisfy what seem to be your needs would have rather negative consequences as well.
23 Mar, 2008, Mabus wrote in the 17th comment:
Samson said:
Cybersquatting should be a crime if it isn't already.
Since the cybersquatter is using a website I owned, that contains my name and that I used for commerce (a professional musical band) I may (and that is a small "may") be able to do something about it.
Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection A...
Not sure if it is worth all the hassle, but I may attempt to get them to send me an actual quote for the website in snail-mail, then present that to the authorities.
Edit: Just sent an email to an attorney.
24 Mar, 2008, drrck wrote in the 18th comment:
Cyber-squatting should definitely not be a crime. It's annoying as hell, shady, under-handed, and crooked, but that's what you get in a capitalist economy. For all the good that it does our society, capitalism is not without its faults. Basically put, you can't have your cake and eat it, too.
24 Mar, 2008, Mabus wrote in the 19th comment:
drrck said:
Cyber-squatting should definitely not be a crime.
I disagree.
Registering a site whose name is based entirely off of an established trade name, and that was just previously owned by an entity that owns the trade name, for the purpose of just profiting from selling it back to them should be illegal, and appears to be in the USA.
While general statements of the virtues of "capitolism" may seem like a fine rallying cry, unregulated capitolism is not practiced in the civilized world for a number of reasons. Monopolies, goods needed to sustain life, medications, chemicals, weapons and intellectual property are just some areas that already have regulations defining legal and illegal use.
24 Mar, 2008, Guest wrote in the 20th comment:
drrck said:
Cyber-squatting should definitely not be a crime.
So you approve of the wholesale fraud and thievery inherent in the act of squatting a domain? Along with the counterfeiting and fraud that goes along with registering alternate suffixes because someone either forgot or didn't know they should? So that situations like I've run into myself in the past where the .com version of a .org domain went instead to porn dealers? I'm not sure how the intent can possibly be justified. Someone is trying to rake in money by offering counterfeit goods. Last I checked in most countries this is a crime with physical goods. I see no reason it shouldn't be the same for commerce on the web.
The Act that Mabus cited didn't go far enough. All it does is protect companies who have trademarked names. Unless I missed something normal folk like me who have no trademarks have no remedy. This should be fixed.
Random Picks
I contacted my provider, but the domain is already gone. I checked the whois, and it is some holding company for domain names. Looking up ICANN and WIPO info gets me to where I can pay $1,500+ to have the situation looked at.
When people have an established website with an established trade name there should be an affordable method to stop this cybersquatting.
Bah!
They can keep the damn name for a year, or forever.
It's my own damn fault. Just needed to rant.