Caitlin Dewey of The Washington Post wrote an article that centered around the recent Taylor Swift and Ted Cruz domain registrations. Caitlin decided to use the words domain trolling instead of the often used cyber squatting. The lone commenter in the article told Caitlin that it is called cybersquatting.
From the article:
What is domain trolling, exactly? And how is it even legal? Given the strong anti-impersonation protections that most social networks supply, the ability to register an entire Web site in someone else’s name seems kind of … medieval.
And yet, there’s very little stopping jokesters, investors or less scrupulous entrepreneurs from buying up desirable Web addresses and either holding them for ransom or using them to straight-up troll.
Caitlin got some commentary from Karl Kronenberger, a partner at the Internet law firm Kronenberger Rosenfeld.
Kronenberger pointed out:
But even when domainers aren’t quite so upstanding, using their domains just to harass or troll, there’s not too much their victims can do. Kronenberger says that if a domain name contains a registered trademark, like Kleenex or Crock-Pot or “I’m Lovin It,” the trademark holder can file a lawsuit for infringement. But there are several variables you have to prove, and that process is expensive. Plus, since individual names are very rarely trademarked, litigation doesn’t help actual people. Not even famous ones. (Except, naturally, Donald Trump.)
Read the full article on The Washington Post
I guess Karl the expert never heard of a UDRP.
.Fail