7 ms·

Domain Squatters Are the Scum of the Earth

25 points by kevq 6y ago

andrewmcwatters 6y ago
I think I recall there being a process for ICANN at least, when someone has squatted on a copyrighted identifier. I could be completely wrong, but my memory on this is foggy. There's pages on ICANN's site about it, iirc. In America, if you had a copyright on the identifier, or maybe in this case, a small business with your name in it, I believe you could make a claim against the domain. Edit: See https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cybersquatting-2013-05-03-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cybersquatting-2013-05... For UK audiences, see https://www.csy-ip.com/cathy-ayers/when-is-cybersquatting-legal-insights-from-recent-nominet-decisions/ https://www.csy-ip.com/cathy-ayers/when-is-cybersquatting-le...
- jnwatson 6y ago
  That's not a bad idea. See a domain you want that's squatted? 1. Register a company and a trademark. 2. Make a UDRP claim. I didn't see anything in the UDRP that mentions that the trademark has to exist before the squatting. It seems like you can retroactively claim it.
  - Mc_Big_G 6y ago
    AFAIK, the company must be "operational" which means having customers, revenue, etc... You must then be willing to pay lawyers.
hpfr 6y ago
$1000 is practically cheap for a squatted domain. I’m looking at one that’s requesting $4000. Frankly I think this is a little over the top. Yeah domain squatting sucks but to claim you have some sort of rights to the domain because it’s “connected to your name” is a bit ridiculous. That would lead to an absolute rat’s nest of litigation around rights to domain names. These are just some of the issues inherent to the problem of readable, unique identifiers. Scarcity is unavoidable. Projects like https://handshake.org https://handshake.org may help alleviate this, but it depends on adoption which is always tough
nly 6y ago
Doesn't the .name TLD exist for this reason? .UK tld domains were also reserved for the existing .co.uk owners etc for a while
jfengel 6y ago
I don't like domain squatters, either. They make the world a worse place. But even if I could wave a magic wand and make domain squatters vanish from the earth, you still couldn't have had quirk.uk. Somebody else would have gotten it first. Maybe it would be an e-commerce site, or a comic book shop, or browser documentation. The only reason it's not owned by any of them is that it belongs to a squatter who got there first. And that squatter is indeed a horrible person, who nabbed something for cheap solely because nobody else had done it yet. They're the guy who takes every single cookie on the tray and insists that it's their legal right to. The world is a crummier place because they exist. Honestly, it's not like quirk.cc is any great internet content, either. The web page is a placeholder. I imagine you're doing email with it, or scoping your package names, or something. It makes you better than the squatter. But I'm sure there's some coffee shop going, "Man, I've got so much better use for that name."
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sieabahlpark 6y ago
  What flawed logic, he would have paid for those cookies rather than just plain taking them. Just because you want a domain name doesn't mean you magically get the rights to it. It's entitled and very elitist.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Is a person that buys land as an investment also a "horrible person"?
  - jfengel 6y ago
    No, but I've also got negative opinions about people who derail arguments with the assertion that X is exactly like Y, so that now I'm spending time talking about their analogy instead of my point.
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      Analogies are important to help understand the world and put things in context. Not only that, but analogies like this are commonly used in our legal system to both argue a point and justify a judicial decision. So I disagree that my comment is a derailment at all. X doesn't have to be exactly like Y for a comparison to be drawn, and I see little difference in the two.
rspeele 6y ago
What if somebody else with the same surname wants quirk.cc? All that you really have going for you is that you were there first. What if the other Quirk is somebody more prominent? What if they have a bigger family to give email addresses to, or a cooler idea for the site? It's really not faaaaaaaiiiiir that you are hogging that domain name. Maybe you should be required to sell it to them at a reasonable price, no more than 100 quid. Or provide documentation proving you have a better use for the domain than they do. Or maybe that's all a lot more complicated, ripe for abuse and favoritism, and centralized than the current system where the owner sets the price and you are free to either buy it, or pick from the infinite space of other options and leave them still holding it paying yearly fees on something they get zero value from. Especially in today's world where every browser's address bar is really a search bar by default, most email clients display the person's "real name" with more prominence than their email address, and a nice domain name is just a cute little bonus.
Mc_Big_G 6y ago
OP didn't mention how long the previous owner had it. In this case, not long, but imagine paying for a .io domain, which used to be > $100/yr, for 10 or more years and then someone comes along complaining that they can't have it for $100. Does it really matter why they were "squatting"? How many of us register a domain, with the best intentions, for an idea we never get to and then won't let it go for less than the sunk cost + the opportunity cost?.
teh_klev 6y ago
Some folks in the comments here are missing the point or perhaps haven't read the article thoroughly enough. The article is making a reasonably valid complaint about overt domain squatters, but the writer doesn't have a problem with the owner of a domain having some kind of useful and legitimate use if it's not available: "If it was being used legitimately, I’d have absolutely not problem with someone else owning the domain."
- scruffyherder 6y ago
  Legit? Is selling goods not legit? Sorry, bub.
- enonevets 6y ago
  The issue here is there are incorrect assumptions being made about what is a legitimate use of a domain here. Op seems to be communicating that legitimate use means having a website of sorts (my interpretation). It's possible the owner is using the domain as an email (just as Op is trying to) without an actual website. Or maybe for other purposes. Similarly, if I use Twitter to log into websites or send messages privately but don't post anything publicly on my Twitter feed, is that not considered a legitimate use because others assume my account is inactive due to no public tweets? It's entirely possible Op's assumptions here are also correct but that doesn't mean it's a good argument for why the owner shouldn't own the domain. I can see why anyone would reasonably have reasons to complain about this (and Op isn't the first person to do so). Being upset at domain squatters isn't new. I'm just not sure I agree that someone not actively using the domain means they should forfeit the rights to it.
  - teh_klev 6y ago
    Ok, the author doesn't take issue with domains that are unavailable because they may be used for things that aren't visible. He takes issue with Domain Squatters, the unfortunately scumbag industry of buying up domains by the barrow load in the hope of making a tidy profit. I'm well aware domain squatters aren't new having lost a domain to one a few years back who then wanted four figures to sell it back to me. I think he has a point and ICANN put the brakes on practices such as "Domain Tasting" to try and address this problem in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting Sure domain squatting specifically to extort money is a legit business, but legit != morally right, kinda like big city commercial landlords.
mikhailfranco 6y ago
The infamous and supremely arrogant squatter asking for > $10m: http://milk.com/value/ http://milk.com/value/
- xingped 6y ago
  He's obviously using the website, regardless of how active or frequently that is, so I don't really see the problem? There's things everybody does that's not about the money, but everyone has a price. He's stated that he likes the domain and that's why he's keeping and continuing to use it so it's not really about the money, but he also goes ahead and names a price in case anyone really really wants it that badly. In this case, his only crime is that he happened to buy a domain with a common name? Who cares?
- jjeaff 6y ago
  He's also delusional. The 2 organizations he mentions are possibly the only two that would potentially pay a lot for that domain. And he has set his asking price at 10% of the entire annual revenue of the first. And a third of annual revenue of the second. He's got a meal ticket a really nice one, too and he is converting it to a lottery ticket by demanding that much.
scruffyherder 6y ago
The entitlement is astonishing! It’s his name, so what? Boo boo! My name is taken by some big footballer from Australia I never heard of. I’ll never get it, as he is crazy famous. And it’s my fault for not getting it back in 1997. What next, am I entitled to my birthday as an IP address? Should my government ID by a free domain? It’s free market, he bought other variations on other TLDs. This isn’t 1994 when domain prospecting became a thing. Domain squatters aren’t squatters, they are investors. If you want it so bad, you need to either pay up, or try to get it when it releases. If it were cheaper I’d just buy it out of spite.

25 points by kevq 6y ago

I think I recall there being a process for ICANN at least, when someone has squatted on a copyrighted identifier. I could be completely wrong, but my memory on this is foggy. There's pages on ICANN's site about it, iirc. In America, if you had a copyright on the identifier, or maybe in this case, a small business with your name in it, I believe you could make a claim against the domain. Edit: See https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cybersquatting-2013-05-03-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cybersquatting-2013-05... For UK audiences, see https://www.csy-ip.com/cathy-ayers/when-is-cybersquatting-legal-insights-from-recent-nominet-decisions/ https://www.csy-ip.com/cathy-ayers/when-is-cybersquatting-le...

jnwatson 6y ago
That's not a bad idea. See a domain you want that's squatted? 1. Register a company and a trademark. 2. Make a UDRP claim. I didn't see anything in the UDRP that mentions that the trademark has to exist before the squatting. It seems like you can retroactively claim it.
- Mc_Big_G 6y ago
  AFAIK, the company must be "operational" which means having customers, revenue, etc... You must then be willing to pay lawyers.

hpfr 6y ago

$1000 is practically cheap for a squatted domain. I’m looking at one that’s requesting $4000. Frankly I think this is a little over the top. Yeah domain squatting sucks but to claim you have some sort of rights to the domain because it’s “connected to your name” is a bit ridiculous. That would lead to an absolute rat’s nest of litigation around rights to domain names. These are just some of the issues inherent to the problem of readable, unique identifiers. Scarcity is unavoidable. Projects like https://handshake.org https://handshake.org may help alleviate this, but it depends on adoption which is always tough

nly 6y ago

Doesn't the .name TLD exist for this reason? .UK tld domains were also reserved for the existing .co.uk owners etc for a while

jfengel 6y ago

I don't like domain squatters, either. They make the world a worse place. But even if I could wave a magic wand and make domain squatters vanish from the earth, you still couldn't have had quirk.uk. Somebody else would have gotten it first. Maybe it would be an e-commerce site, or a comic book shop, or browser documentation. The only reason it's not owned by any of them is that it belongs to a squatter who got there first. And that squatter is indeed a horrible person, who nabbed something for cheap solely because nobody else had done it yet. They're the guy who takes every single cookie on the tray and insists that it's their legal right to. The world is a crummier place because they exist. Honestly, it's not like quirk.cc is any great internet content, either. The web page is a placeholder. I imagine you're doing email with it, or scoping your package names, or something. It makes you better than the squatter. But I'm sure there's some coffee shop going, "Man, I've got so much better use for that name."

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sieabahlpark 6y ago
What flawed logic, he would have paid for those cookies rather than just plain taking them. Just because you want a domain name doesn't mean you magically get the rights to it. It's entitled and very elitist.
jjeaff 6y ago
Is a person that buys land as an investment also a "horrible person"?
- jfengel 6y ago
  No, but I've also got negative opinions about people who derail arguments with the assertion that X is exactly like Y, so that now I'm spending time talking about their analogy instead of my point.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Analogies are important to help understand the world and put things in context. Not only that, but analogies like this are commonly used in our legal system to both argue a point and justify a judicial decision. So I disagree that my comment is a derailment at all. X doesn't have to be exactly like Y for a comparison to be drawn, and I see little difference in the two.

rspeele 6y ago

What if somebody else with the same surname wants quirk.cc? All that you really have going for you is that you were there first. What if the other Quirk is somebody more prominent? What if they have a bigger family to give email addresses to, or a cooler idea for the site? It's really not faaaaaaaiiiiir that you are hogging that domain name. Maybe you should be required to sell it to them at a reasonable price, no more than 100 quid. Or provide documentation proving you have a better use for the domain than they do. Or maybe that's all a lot more complicated, ripe for abuse and favoritism, and centralized than the current system where the owner sets the price and you are free to either buy it, or pick from the infinite space of other options and leave them still holding it paying yearly fees on something they get zero value from. Especially in today's world where every browser's address bar is really a search bar by default, most email clients display the person's "real name" with more prominence than their email address, and a nice domain name is just a cute little bonus.

Mc_Big_G 6y ago

OP didn't mention how long the previous owner had it. In this case, not long, but imagine paying for a .io domain, which used to be > $100/yr, for 10 or more years and then someone comes along complaining that they can't have it for $100. Does it really matter why they were "squatting"? How many of us register a domain, with the best intentions, for an idea we never get to and then won't let it go for less than the sunk cost + the opportunity cost?.

teh_klev 6y ago

Some folks in the comments here are missing the point or perhaps haven't read the article thoroughly enough. The article is making a reasonably valid complaint about overt domain squatters, but the writer doesn't have a problem with the owner of a domain having some kind of useful and legitimate use if it's not available: "If it was being used legitimately, I’d have absolutely not problem with someone else owning the domain."

scruffyherder 6y ago
Legit? Is selling goods not legit? Sorry, bub.
enonevets 6y ago
The issue here is there are incorrect assumptions being made about what is a legitimate use of a domain here. Op seems to be communicating that legitimate use means having a website of sorts (my interpretation). It's possible the owner is using the domain as an email (just as Op is trying to) without an actual website. Or maybe for other purposes. Similarly, if I use Twitter to log into websites or send messages privately but don't post anything publicly on my Twitter feed, is that not considered a legitimate use because others assume my account is inactive due to no public tweets? It's entirely possible Op's assumptions here are also correct but that doesn't mean it's a good argument for why the owner shouldn't own the domain. I can see why anyone would reasonably have reasons to complain about this (and Op isn't the first person to do so). Being upset at domain squatters isn't new. I'm just not sure I agree that someone not actively using the domain means they should forfeit the rights to it.
- teh_klev 6y ago
  Ok, the author doesn't take issue with domains that are unavailable because they may be used for things that aren't visible. He takes issue with Domain Squatters, the unfortunately scumbag industry of buying up domains by the barrow load in the hope of making a tidy profit. I'm well aware domain squatters aren't new having lost a domain to one a few years back who then wanted four figures to sell it back to me. I think he has a point and ICANN put the brakes on practices such as "Domain Tasting" to try and address this problem in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting Sure domain squatting specifically to extort money is a legit business, but legit != morally right, kinda like big city commercial landlords.

mikhailfranco 6y ago

The infamous and supremely arrogant squatter asking for > $10m: http://milk.com/value/ http://milk.com/value/

xingped 6y ago
He's obviously using the website, regardless of how active or frequently that is, so I don't really see the problem? There's things everybody does that's not about the money, but everyone has a price. He's stated that he likes the domain and that's why he's keeping and continuing to use it so it's not really about the money, but he also goes ahead and names a price in case anyone really really wants it that badly. In this case, his only crime is that he happened to buy a domain with a common name? Who cares?
jjeaff 6y ago
He's also delusional. The 2 organizations he mentions are possibly the only two that would potentially pay a lot for that domain. And he has set his asking price at 10% of the entire annual revenue of the first. And a third of annual revenue of the second. He's got a meal ticket a really nice one, too and he is converting it to a lottery ticket by demanding that much.

scruffyherder 6y ago

The entitlement is astonishing! It’s his name, so what? Boo boo! My name is taken by some big footballer from Australia I never heard of. I’ll never get it, as he is crazy famous. And it’s my fault for not getting it back in 1997. What next, am I entitled to my birthday as an IP address? Should my government ID by a free domain? It’s free market, he bought other variations on other TLDs. This isn’t 1994 when domain prospecting became a thing. Domain squatters aren’t squatters, they are investors. If you want it so bad, you need to either pay up, or try to get it when it releases. If it were cheaper I’d just buy it out of spite.