The issue of cybersquatting has now come up so many times, I think we need
to properly address it and dispose of it.

There seem to be a number of variations of what people think cybersquatting
is. The correct definition is the act of registering a domain that matches
the name, trademark or product of a company or person, with the intent of
benefiting from the goodwill or value associated with the name, or intending
to force the targeted entity to pay an inflated price to get that domain
name back.

The act of registering numerous domains names that match generic products,
services, phrases, common words etc with the intention of re-selling the
domain at an inflated price is more appropriately called domain speculation,
and is in no way similar to cybersquatting, the two should not be grouped
for any reason.

Cybersquatting has real and direct victims, and is almost  universally
considered unethical, immoral and usually also illegal. Domain speculation
has no direct victims, the only possible negative impact is that it
increases the price of the targetted domains. This does however also have
the positive of driving the price of normal registrations down, as
registrars and the registry get higher overall volumes of registrations.

We already have a large number of policies in place to stop cybersquatting,
making the transfer process easier will have no impact whatsoever in this
regard. There is therefore no point anyone discussing the issue of
cybersquatting, it is completely irrelevant to current proposals.

If you have an issue with domain speculators, that specific issue can be
discussed as some already have. I am for example prepared to have some
controls in place to reduce or minimise rampant speculation, such as the 6
month transfer lock Tony suggested. Existing eligibility rules, as well as
the requirement to have an ABN etc already mean we will never see the level
of speculation you get in .com. I am however not interested in anyone who
wants to totally prevent domain speculation. It is a perfectly legal
activity, very few people will be negativelly impacted and there are a
number of benefits, not just for registrars.

Apart from a couple of people who, for some incomprehensible reason seem
intent on doing everything they can to prevent any reasonable discussion on
the matter, the last few days have already seen a number of more positive
suggestions and some movement towards a likely middle ground, I hope it
continues.

Bennett.