More than a few of you are wondering what domain squatting is. For those of you who have tried to register a domain name (even your personal name) only to find out that it has been taken but not used – you have a pretty good idea.
Basically, domain “squatting” is the practice of companies and individuals registering multiple domain names without the intent to actually use them in most cases.
Registrars such as Godaddy.com allow their customers to “park” as many domain names as they want as long as they pay the registration fees. Most of the time, if you were to go to these site names, you’d find a page which reads, “This domain is for sale,” or some other generic form of, “Under development.” What these squatters are hoping for is that you’ll want the name so badly that you’ll contact them and pay an outrageous fee to get it.
There is a process to go through where you can put the name you want on a waiting list. When the name becomes free, you’ll have the opportunity to register it. Chances are that you’ll wait years since the current “owner” will have first dibs at renewing their registration. All you can really hope for is that a variation of the name you want hasn’t been “parked” too.
Considering that anyone can register a domain name for up to ten years, chances are slim to none that you’ll get the exact name you want, especially with .com and .net addresses. Again, you can contact the current name owner and make an offer to buy it. You’ll probably wind up paying hundreds to thousands of dollars to get it though.
In short, the only ones benefitting from domain squatting/parking are the people doing it.
Fight Cyber Squatters at Court
Over the years a few court cases have popped up where a domain squatter has parked some famous person or company’s name. Those cases wound up costing the plaintiffs thousands of dollars (or more), and the people parking the domain names lost little to nothing unless you count a single name out of hundreds. The only time a domain squatter is hurt is when they’re renting a domain to a third party, such as a porn site.
Sometimes, a person or company’s name will actually have a website. If the site is a porn seller, or other type of “unsavory” business, it can have adverse effects on the people or company named in the address. This confuses friends, family, and potential customers/employees if they’re looking for you or your company. For example: A domain squatter has registered the name jonathandaniels.com and rented the name to a porn seller. The real Jonathan Daniels (and there are probably quite a few of them) sets up a website under another name because his name is taken. Friends, family, and potential employers will more than likely do a web search for “Jonathan Daniels”. Imagine your mother or grandmother looking you up online and coming across a “marital aid” site.
In the end you have only a few choices. You can attempt to contact and buy the domain name you want from the current owner, find a variation you can live with, or go to court. Until domain squatting/parking becomes illegal, you will just have to live with most of the good .com and .net names being taken already.
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