Future of CyberSquatting

Submitted by: KevinB

Cybersquatters or Typosquatters are people who register domain names that are similar to or are common mis-spellings of popular addresses. The sole purpose is to lure or mis-guide organic traffic to visit the 'squatted' domain instead of the original trademarked domain.

It is often the case that these domain-squatters will infringe on trademarked terms and actively seek to gain financially from using the squatted domain by means of pay-per-click advertisements.

The growth of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has also seen a growth in domain squatting. The increase in advertising revenue is actively luring in more domain squatters while existing entities increase the scale of their activities. This trend is set to continue and further dilute the internet with spam and junk sites.

Microsoft Corporation may make a timely intervention to reverse this trend and do the entire internet community a favorable service by aggressively pursuing cybersquatters that register domains involving Microsoft trademarked terms.

Microsoft has launched 3 lawsuits against cybersquatters who it stated as profiting from domain names that infringe on Microsoft trademarks. It is not the first time Microsoft have looked to take legal action on cybersquatters, although this recent move may receive more coverage and highlight the scale of the fledgling business.

The outcome of the case may see a rush of other corporate entities protecting their trademarked terms and effectively putting an end to highly profitable domain squatting. It may not end the practice, although it will lead to a reverse in the trend that should help to keep the problem under control.

The current Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, brought into law in 1999 by President Clinton, is part of the grounds Microsoft is arguing the case on. However, domain name registrars could also be targeted for failure to refuse registrations of such names and this would be the fundamental change should Microsoft prevail.

About the Author

KevinB is an article researcher for various topics including Internet Domain Articles for Ad-Matrix.net article directory.

Article Source: Ad-Matrix.net