by
Bret Fausett
at 09:59AM (PST) on December 14, 2006 |
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Here's
a pointed article from the Times Online:
"A new type of cyber-squatting which allows opportunists
to occupy web addresses without paying for them is creating havoc for
internet chiefs....As many as five million domain names are registered each
year by domain name kiters, according to the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which assigns web addresses." The article includes quotes from ICANN's
Paul Twomey and NetNames'
Jonathan Robinson.
For the record, although the media likes to refer to any distasteful registration practice as "cybersquatting," it is not the same as domain name "tasting" or "kiting." "Tasting" refers to a domain name registration lasting less than 5 days, while "cybersquatting" refers to a certain type of registration designed to trade on the trademark value of another. In other words, some "tasting" may include "cybersquatting," but not all "tasting" is "cybersquatting." You can find more background on the issue by reading
the transcript of last week's domain name marketplace workshop in Sao Paulo.