81–90 of 115 posts
The guy's name is Harsh, what other actions would you expect from him? But seriously, looking at the doc and not mentioned in the article. Harsh apparently tried to negotiate, failed, then tried to "transfer" the domain. When Kneen called him out on this, Harsh suggested it was someone else, and that he wouldn't have done this since he found a suitable alternative. So I'm pretty sure Harsh was being purposely manipul…
I've also been sitting on a bunch of domainnames; all with the interest of "maybe some day" projects. One can hardly call that cybersquatting. It is, however very frustrating these days, .com is still king and for example I had whole dictionaries running for my keyword*.com -- and surprisingly enough, even the most insane combinations were taken. Ofcourse, selling a premium domain once in a while for 15k, makes it po…
Don't be so down on what you do. It's not hogging and it's not cybersquatting. This whole concept of it being wrong to register domains was back in the mid 90's when there was no cost and people would register names with clear trademark rights (like panavision.com) with the sole idea of selling it to only one person. The trademark owner. Not the same as what you and many others are doing. Let's say a name that you wo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is actually how trademark already works, if you have enough money. E.g. well funded brands like Coke, Google, Facebook, can easily use trademark to retroactively remove rights to a name from anyone who wasn't actively using it for some non-squatting purpose - within certain trademark and legal scopes. Doesn't matter if someone simply owned property with that name prior to the trademark. The test is more complex…
I am not sure if UK or US law will apply but in Commonwealth countries there is a clause in trademark law called Prior Use. Basically if you are using an unregistered-trademark which is then later registered you are not considered to be infriging if you have been using this trademark before the trademark was registered. Cyber squatting laws specifically call out that you need to have obtained the name with ill intent…
I have sympathy for Kneen, but do we really, as a society, benefit from people that buy useful domains and then sit on them for 16 years while doing nothing with them?
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What other property rights should be under your "use it or lose it proposal"? Land? Housing?
We indeed do that with land and housing, aka real estate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession But the Internet landscape is very different and less finite in nature.
But adverse possession does not simply allow one entity to come in, declare the owning entity to not be using a property, and assume legal control. As a land-owning entity, I am not required to "use" my land, and as long as I kick squatters out in a reasonable amount of time, adverse possession does not affect me.
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Why does it need to be prevented exactly? Why is the internet different than anything other situation where people see an opportunity to make money and take advantage of that opportunity? Like buying real estate or wine, or art and so on? It is trivial anyway to "use" a domain name. Are you further suggesting that someone who is legitimately "using" a domain name (and who is going to decide what use is anyway) then c…
Because, it favours those who have more money. People who can afford a few dollars/pounds, mostly from the western countries, can keep domains booked for years. Others in the developing or under-developed world don't have that luxury... but the internet is a more global/democratic place... or should be.
I think many of us have been looking for an available domain for a site and found all of them registered years before and parked since then. The normal way to proceed is look for another name and try again. Mehta is doing it wrong. However I don't like the general idea of squatting, also on domains. I'd be happy if there was an easy way to prevent it. Somebody suggested incremental renewal fees for unused domains, bu…
Why does it need to be prevented exactly? Why is the internet different than anything other situation where people see an opportunity to make money and take advantage of that opportunity? Like buying real estate or wine, or art and so on? It is trivial anyway to "use" a domain name. Are you further suggesting that someone who is legitimately "using" a domain name (and who is going to decide what use is anyway) then c…
Wine and art are dissimilar cases because they can be created in as large a quantity as there is a market for.
Real estate, on the other hand, is a very similar case, and in my opinion there should be laws against playing dog in the manger with real estate - either an outright ban or a hefty penalty in the form of extra property tax.
Though I'm not quite sure how you would go about defining and enforcing such laws for domain names.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't be so down on what you do. It's not hogging and it's not cybersquatting. This whole concept of it being wrong to register domains was back in the mid 90's when there was no cost and people would register names with clear trademark rights (like panavision.com) with the sole idea of selling it to only one person. The trademark owner. Not the same as what you and many others are doing. Let's say a name that you wo…
right but also, one thing to remember is, an old domainname; depends on the extension, but some of them were not cheap as in these days. maybe it was my inexperience, but I have some domains I paid 50$ for back in the days/year. so, in 10 years time you get to the point of: should I let it go, or am I already too deep in? But letting it go for $100, well, just would be a big loss. In that regard, letting it go for sa…
I think many of us have been looking for an available domain for a site and found all of them registered years before and parked since then. The normal way to proceed is look for another name and try again. Mehta is doing it wrong. However I don't like the general idea of squatting, also on domains. I'd be happy if there was an easy way to prevent it. Somebody suggested incremental renewal fees for unused domains, bu…
If you define "unused" domain as "doesn't have a working website associated to it" then this definition is (imo) wrong. The internet is more than just websites. I have several domains that don't have any websites associated with them, but I still use them for things such as email, hostnames, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What other property rights should be under your "use it or lose it proposal"? Land? Housing?
We indeed do that with land and housing, aka real estate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession But the Internet landscape is very different and less finite in nature.