Maya VPS

So, we've all done it. Mistyped a URL and gotten a page full of useless ads. Not until recently did I decide to check out omarmaya.com, a domain name I registered in July of 2008 which expired a year later. I had no intention of renewing this name, so I let it go, regardless of all the junk mail I received from various registrars asking me to renew it. I was a little surprised when I typed in my old domain name it returned a page full of advertisement links.

WHOISIT?

A simple lookup of the WHOIS records returns the following:

In the Corporate World

Not everyone is so understanding, apparently this has been a big issue with innovative giants Verizon, Apple, Microsoft, and Dell, among them.

Apple

In fact, the CEO of CyberBritain, Benjamin Cohen, registered itunes.co.uk a month before Apple's trademark had gone through and even turned down a monetary offer to sell the domain to Apple. Since Apple owns the trademark to iTunes, it should also have a right to the domain name, despite the trademark applicant not getting to it first, according to the ruling (CNET News).

Microsoft

Microsoft has also decided that any domain name reflecting any sort of similarity to a Microsoft product should belong to Microsoft, microsoftsystem.com and hotmialcom.com included (Seattle PI). Maybe this will help their Live-Search-with-a-background-picture product, Bing?

Dell

Dell's main argument is that all the traffic going to the misleading sites was intended for them.

Verizon

Finally, in "the largest cybersquatting judgment ever," OnlineNIC was ordered to pay around $33.15 million for misused domains it obtained through an automated process, forging names and cocealing information (The Register).

The Law

According to the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act established specifically for this purpose a famous mark cannot be used if a trademark or service mark owner decides the opposing group has obtained it in "bad faith?"

Who's in Charge Here?

Is this ethical on either end? Should domain names be tied to legal entity names? Are the masses' domain names safe against registered corporations should they decided to take them? Is this preventing unethical groups from obtaining domains in bulk and selling them to interested organizations at an exaggerated price?