Domain Taster’s Days Are Numbered: ICANN Marches Forward With Changes to AGP

Internet squatters facing eviction – International Herald Tribune

Arbitrators like the World Intellectual Property Organization and the National Arbitration Forum attribute the record number of international trademark disputes last year to domain tasting. Since this form of domain name tasting emerged in 2005, for example, the number of disputes to come before the WIPO has risen 48 percent, to 2,156.

For companies like Microsoft, domain tasting creates the constant headache of chasing after typo-squatters  those who create and register Web sites with misspelled variations of the Microsoft name. For individual users, it means that millions of names are tied up in a constant churn of registering and returning names before fees are charged.

…. "We call it a billion-dollar industry," said Phil Lodico, an Internet strategy consultant and vice president with the coalition. "Initially squatters were just individuals who could be located anywhere by their personal computers. They're still out there, but there are also these companies that have invested heavily in technology. They're just canvassing the net by registering hundreds of thousands of domain names. And these folks are well-funded."

… The top three, Capitoldomains, Belgiumdomains and Domaindoormain, are registrar companies that each registered and dumped more than 11 million domain names in one month alone last year, according to Icann.

All three share the same address in Miami, with a contact number for a lawyer, Nancy Cliff, who did not respond to repeated messages. The Web sites for the three companies note though that they are fighting a lawsuit filed by personal computer giant, Dell, which is pressing "cybersquatting" lawsuits against the three.