Regulating Cybersquatting (Domain Sharks)

1. Flawed logic: They don't do it to annoy everyone. They do it as a business. Yes, it is annoying! but your logic is flawed.

2. They've invested money and are sitting on that. Don't you have money in the bank? That money gets invested on other things and that's why you get an interest on it. Why is this something bad? I even might agree with you, but again you fail to show why is this a bad thing at all.

3. That's just plain stupid. What you call cybersquatting is just people buying goods, sitting on them until they've got some more value and then selling them for a profit. It sounds like any other legal business to me.

And the rest of your rant doesn't get any better. Are you seriously stopped because you couldn't get the domain you wanted? Then my advice is to work for someone else, don't even try to start a business if you give up so early for the smallest of the reasons.

Give up on the idea of regulating cybersquatting; it will never happen in a free economy. Counter Points:

1. IMO, a startup who's being held back by a domain shark is already in the wrong mindset and is probably going to fail. Successful startups work with what's available to them and pick up the domain they truly want when they have the capital to do so. Facebook for example, started as thefacebook.com; they purchased facebook.com in 2005 for $200k

2. Yes, .coms are becoming a rarity, but again - free economy; it's all about supply and demand. While .coms may be the ideal domain, it's not like there aren't other completely feasible choices out there. If the .com isn't available, why not .io? .ninja?

3. The drug analogy is incorrect and improper. A better analogy is to think of domains as land. Both are finite in what's usable; and in both cases owners are entitled to deciding what they want to do with the property - whether that's building something, letting it sit there, or selling it for profit.

Don't get mad at people because they thought of your name before you did; accept it as a reality and embrace the practice yourself. A certain founder I know of a publicly traded deals website is sitting on over 100+ domains. Why? The opportunity to use them in the future. I myself am sitting on 20+ for the same exact reason, I recommend you do the same.

Although I believe that many things in this world ought not to be regulated, I have believed for a long time that domain squatting really ought to be. Some folks here have expressed that it is okay to make a profit from an investment. While this may be true in many cases, there is a serious lack of ethics in any case where the "investor" is not creating value. Back hundreds (or more) years ago, it was considered by many to be inappropriate to buy land with the intent of selling for a higher price later without that land having been actively improved by the party holding it. Holding on to something, leaving it as it is, and selling it later is not improving it. Any profit gained from its later selling is appreciation accumulated by the actions and labour of society -- not the squatter. In other words, the squatter is leeching on society, much like someone counterfeiting money. This situation applies not only to domains but also to many other things that are squatted. If he or she cares about ethics, an investor needs to ask by whom and to what extent the value is being created. After all, investing in buying slaves was surely a way to make a profit. But was it ethical?

As for how exactly domain registration could successfully be regulated for the greater good of society, that is a tricky one. Perhaps a limit on the number of unimproved domains concurrently held by one party would be an effective start. Or perhaps a track record whereby a certain minimum proportion of purchased domains must end up being used legitimately, with a certain allowance for newcomers.

I agree with others that the drug analogy was a poor fit.

Maybe there should be a way to challange a domain squat, stating for example that you can't park domain for more than X time, and you can't renew it if you kept it parked for X time without doing anything with it. I see a lot of legitimate reasons to keep a domain parked, but clearly a domain that redirects to the likes of "get the best offers for..." has the only purpose of reselling squatted domains, and that would be a sufficient reason, IMHO, to 'expropriate' a domain.

> This Cybersquatting is exactly the same as selling drugs

Please, give me a break.

I agree there are a lot of reasons to keep a domain parked. The only thing I do not agree on is buying domains just to resell them again. You can do that with ground, properties and so on because these are valuable. But on a platform such as the internet this just puts a stop to the evolution of it.

The drugs reference might be a bit overdone, I just want to make a statement here to find a regulation for this.

There are hundreds of new TLDs available now. Just use one of them and move on.