What is cy­ber­squat­ting?

The domain market is full of users occupying promising addresses. If these domain names are trade­marked terms, they might be breaking the law. This practice, often con­sidered illegal, is commonly referred to in internet terms as cy­ber­squat­ting.

Cy­ber­squat­ting meaning and types

While domain grabbers target un­pro­tec­ted terms, cy­ber­squat­ters con­cen­trate spe­cific­ally on trade­marks and proper names. The aim of re­gis­ter­ing legally-protected terms as part of the domain name is to sell them to the actual rights owner for a higher transfer fee.

Cy­ber­squat­ting is also referred to as brand jacking or name jacking, depending on the type of trademark pro­tec­tion. If the con­tro­ver­sial domain contains the name or part of the name of musicians, sports per­son­al­it­ies, TV stars, or other celebrit­ies this results in an overlap of both practices.

To put pressure on rights holders, many of these domains are used for malicious purposes. For example, they include content which shows the business or the person concerned in a bad light.

A special type of cy­ber­squat­ting is ty­po­squat­ting, where typos are pur­pose­fully made in brand name domains in order to intercept visitors.

Domain name law in the UK

In the UK, there isn’t a clearly defined internet domain name law since most of the legal framework is based on the law of contract. When you purchase a domain and agree to the legal terms and con­di­tions, these usually bind you to a dispute res­ol­u­tion policy e.g. the ICANN Uniform Dispute Res­ol­u­tion Policy (UDRP). If someone claims you are using a domain for harmful purposes, and they win the case, the domain name can be trans­ferred to them.

If you register a domain name which is similar to someone else’s this can be seen as an ‘in­stru­ment of fraud’. If the UK court does consider the domain name to be a breach of in­tel­lec­tu­al property rights, the domain owner may have to transfer the domain name as well as be liable for any damages and costs.

Some countries, such as the US with its An­ti­cy­ber­squat­ting Consumer Pro­tec­tion Act (ACPA), have more specific domain name laws, which give specific legal rights to trademark owners.

Social media and cy­ber­squat­ting

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter continue to grow in pop­ular­ity and this has led to a new form of cy­ber­squat­ting where trademark-protected brands or names are re­gistered by others. They have now made the practice a violation of their terms and services. Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, found out the hard way just how damaging cy­ber­squat­ting can be. Someone re­gistered a Twitter account using his name and posted many derog­at­ory status updates with the aim of damaging his repu­ta­tion. He was the first celebrity to file a lawsuit against the site, before later dropping it.

Facebook is also strict when it comes to trademark in­fringe­ment. Trademark owners must report any unlawful profiles as soon as they see them. A further step to prevent cy­ber­squat­ting is mobile phone au­then­tic­a­tion, which involves a user verifying their account by phone in order to get a username.

Please note the legal dis­claim­er relating to this article.