The truth of Dropbox's acquisition of dropbox.com is a little murkier than them just buying it - it appears that they initiated this by suing the previous owner

The truth of Dropbox's acquisition of dropbox.com is a little murkier than them just buying it - it appears that they initiated this by suing the previous owner, who had owned the domain since 1995: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv03824/218466/8/ http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/californ... However, the case was later dismissed, so I guess they came to some other agreement after all: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2009cv03824/218466/12/ http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/californ... No details on whether the initial owner had to give up the domain or was fairly compensated.