
Domain Squatters Are the Scum of the Earth - kevq
https://kevq.uk/domain-squatters-are-the-scum-of-the-earth/
======
jfengel
I don't like domain squatters, either. They make the world a worse place.

But even if I could wave a magic wand and make domain squatters vanish from
the earth, you still couldn't have had quirk.uk. Somebody else would have
gotten it first. Maybe it would be an e-commerce site, or a comic book shop,
or browser documentation.

The only reason it's not owned by any of them is that it belongs to a squatter
who got there first. And that squatter is indeed a horrible person, who nabbed
something for cheap solely because nobody else had done it yet. They're the
guy who takes every single cookie on the tray and insists that it's their
legal right to. The world is a crummier place because they exist.

Honestly, it's not like quirk.cc is any great internet content, either. The
web page is a placeholder. I imagine you're doing email with it, or scoping
your package names, or something. It makes you better than the squatter. But
I'm sure there's some coffee shop going, "Man, I've got so much better use for
that name."

~~~
jjeaff
Is a person that buys land as an investment also a "horrible person"?

~~~
jfengel
No, but I've also got negative opinions about people who derail arguments with
the assertion that X is exactly like Y, so that now I'm spending time talking
about their analogy instead of my point.

~~~
jjeaff
Analogies are important to help understand the world and put things in
context. Not only that, but analogies like this are commonly used in our legal
system to both argue a point and justify a judicial decision. So I disagree
that my comment is a derailment at all. X doesn't have to be exactly like Y
for a comparison to be drawn, and I see little difference in the two.

------
rspeele
What if somebody else with the same surname wants quirk.cc? All that you
really have going for you is that you were there first. What if the other
Quirk is somebody more prominent? What if they have a bigger family to give
email addresses to, or a cooler idea for the site? It's really not
faaaaaaaiiiiir that you are hogging that domain name.

Maybe you should be required to sell it to them at a reasonable price, no more
than 100 quid. Or provide documentation proving you have a better use for the
domain than they do.

Or maybe that's all a lot more complicated, ripe for abuse and favoritism, and
centralized than the current system where the owner sets the price and you are
free to either buy it, or pick from the infinite space of other options and
leave them still holding it paying yearly fees on something they get zero
value from. Especially in today's world where every browser's address bar is
really a search bar by default, most email clients display the person's "real
name" with more prominence than their email address, and a nice domain name is
just a cute little bonus.

------
andrewmcwatters
I think I recall there being a process for ICANN at least, when someone has
squatted on a copyrighted identifier. I could be completely wrong, but my
memory on this is foggy. There's pages on ICANN's site about it, iirc.

In America, if you had a copyright on the identifier, or maybe in this case, a
small business with your name in it, I believe you could make a claim against
the domain.

Edit: See
[https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cybersquatting-2013-05...](https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/cybersquatting-2013-05-03-en)

For UK audiences, see [https://www.csy-ip.com/cathy-ayers/when-is-
cybersquatting-le...](https://www.csy-ip.com/cathy-ayers/when-is-
cybersquatting-legal-insights-from-recent-nominet-decisions/)

~~~
jnwatson
That's not a bad idea.

See a domain you want that's squatted?

1\. Register a company and a trademark. 2\. Make a UDRP claim.

I didn't see anything in the UDRP that mentions that the trademark has to
exist before the squatting. It seems like you can retroactively claim it.

~~~
Mc_Big_G
AFAIK, the company must be "operational" which means having customers,
revenue, etc... You must then be willing to pay lawyers.

------
scruffyherder
The entitlement is astonishing!

It’s his name, so what? Boo boo!

My name is taken by some big footballer from Australia I never heard of. I’ll
never get it, as he is crazy famous. And it’s my fault for not getting it back
in 1997.

What next, am I entitled to my birthday as an IP address? Should my government
ID by a free domain?

It’s free market, he bought other variations on other TLDs. This isn’t 1994
when domain prospecting became a thing.

Domain squatters aren’t squatters, they are investors. If you want it so bad,
you need to either pay up, or try to get it when it releases.

If it were cheaper I’d just buy it out of spite.

------
hpfr
$1000 is practically cheap for a squatted domain. I’m looking at one that’s
requesting $4000.

Frankly I think this is a little over the top. Yeah domain squatting sucks but
to claim you have some sort of rights to the domain because it’s “connected to
your name” is a bit ridiculous. That would lead to an absolute rat’s nest of
litigation around rights to domain names.

These are just some of the issues inherent to the problem of readable, unique
identifiers. Scarcity is unavoidable.

Projects like [https://handshake.org](https://handshake.org) may help
alleviate this, but it depends on adoption which is always tough

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Mc_Big_G
OP didn't mention how long the previous owner had it. In this case, not long,
but imagine paying for a .io domain, which used to be > $100/yr, for 10 or
more years and then someone comes along complaining that they can't have it
for $100. Does it really matter why they were "squatting"? How many of us
register a domain, with the best intentions, for an idea we never get to and
then won't let it go for less than the sunk cost + the opportunity cost?.

------
teh_klev
Some folks in the comments here are missing the point or perhaps haven't read
the article thoroughly enough. The article is making a reasonably valid
complaint about overt domain squatters, but the writer doesn't have a problem
with the owner of a domain having some kind of useful and legitimate use if
it's not available:

 _" If it was being used legitimately, I’d have absolutely not problem with
someone else owning the domain."_

~~~
enonevets
The issue here is there are incorrect assumptions being made about what is a
legitimate use of a domain here. Op seems to be communicating that legitimate
use means having a website of sorts (my interpretation).

It's possible the owner is using the domain as an email (just as Op is trying
to) without an actual website. Or maybe for other purposes.

Similarly, if I use Twitter to log into websites or send messages privately
but don't post anything publicly on my Twitter feed, is that not considered a
legitimate use because others assume my account is inactive due to no public
tweets?

It's entirely possible Op's assumptions here are also correct but that doesn't
mean it's a good argument for why the owner shouldn't own the domain. I can
see why anyone would reasonably have reasons to complain about this (and Op
isn't the first person to do so). Being upset at domain squatters isn't new.
I'm just not sure I agree that someone not actively using the domain means
they should forfeit the rights to it.

~~~
teh_klev
Ok, the author doesn't take issue with domains that are unavailable because
they may be used for things that aren't visible. He takes issue with Domain
Squatters, the unfortunately scumbag industry of buying up domains by the
barrow load in the hope of making a tidy profit.

I'm well aware domain squatters aren't new having lost a domain to one a few
years back who then wanted four figures to sell it back to me. I think he has
a point and ICANN put the brakes on practices such as "Domain Tasting" to try
and address this problem in the past:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting)

Sure domain squatting specifically to extort money is a legit business, but
legit != morally right, kinda like big city commercial landlords.

~~~
enonevets
How does he know the owner originally bought it to squat on it or for some
other purpose? Or that he isn’t using it for other purposes that aren’t
visible.

Just because the owner is willing to sell it now doesn’t imply that (I’m not
saying he isn’t a squatter either).

You take the stance that maybe folks on this thread didn’t read the post but
then selectively ignore the context underlying the argument the Op is making.

My point is there are assumptions here that may not be true. Calling the owner
here a squatter simply because he feels entitled to the domain because it’s
his last name is different than making a statement that squatters in general
are toxic (separate from this context).

You can’t separate the two and simply ignore the situation here as if he’s
making “just” a general statement that squatters are bad. There is a level of
entitlement and assumption being made here, or not communicated clearly, that
shouldn’t be ignored (for this specific context) just to go broad and argue
whether we think squatters are toxic or not.

It’d be an entirely different argument if this post was about why domain
squatters are toxic. But within this context, you can’t even say with
certainty that the owner is in fact a squatter. And that’s before we discuss
the issue of domain squatting.

~~~
teh_klev
Let me spell it out...domain squatters, in the business of buying up large
numbers of domains (1000's of them), having well oiled business models and
websites to try and fleece you out of an extortionate sum of money. The
domains they're selling having no other use than to squat on them for profit
from their sale.

I don't mean Johnny Internet bloke who acquired a few domains over the years
and tries to punt them, I mean the parasitic businesses set up to profit from
squatting. Surely I can't be any clearer?

~~~
enonevets
I heard you the first time. You're missing my point. You are arguing about
domain squatters in general.

This article is not about domain squatters in general. It's about the owner of
quirk.uk leading to the Op making a generalize statement about domain
squatters. The two are not equal.

Lets say someone posted to HN that Google banned them. Without Google's side
of the story, and questioning if there are other details, we take the author's
word and assume Google is the bad guy. But it turns out the author was a
spammer and Google had good reason to ban the guy. But you don't know that and
don't have context for that because none of that was posted in the author's
post. Do you just jump the bandwagon and start attacking Google in general
ignoring the point the author is making?

The same applies here. It's one thing to have a discussion about domain
squatters (this is not it). It's an entirely different argument when this is
about Op and the owner of a specific domain, leading him to make a generalized
statement that none of us can even confirm is true about the owner or not.

~~~
teh_klev
I hate to break HN guidelines, but I think you need to re-read the article.

~~~
enonevets
I just did.

At the very top it says:

`I wanted to register quirk.uk, but arsehole domain squatters are getting in
the way and making that almost impossible.`

Aside from the fact that the domain is now available for sale, it does nothing
to prove whether the owner originally got it to squat on it or they got it
with a different intended purpose, or if they are using it at all aside from
the intention of _now_ selling it.

At minimum I think we're discussing two different points on the same post
here. But this is going in circles so I'm fine with leaving this be.

------
mikhailfranco
The infamous and supremely arrogant squatter asking for > $10m:

[http://milk.com/value/](http://milk.com/value/)

~~~
xingped
He's obviously using the website, regardless of how active or frequently that
is, so I don't really see the problem?

There's things everybody does that's not about the money, but everyone has a
price. He's stated that he likes the domain and that's why he's keeping and
continuing to use it so it's not really about the money, but he also goes
ahead and names a price in case anyone really really wants it that badly.

In this case, his only crime is that he happened to buy a domain with a common
name? Who cares?

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nly
Doesn't the .name TLD exist for this reason?

.UK tld domains were also reserved for the existing .co.uk owners etc for a
while

