So who has ever heard of cybersquatting? Its when someone profits off of another. Like say there is a young upcoming actor, maybe a preteen or someone on one of those reality shows like American Idol. Lets say that American Idol starts up and new comer "Mary Jane" is on it. Well cybersquater Bobby Jo quick buys the domain for maryjane.com. Now Mary Jane wins and becomes famous. Well Bobby Jo bought the domain from GoDaddy.com for 9.99 but now wants to sell it to Mary Jane who really wants it but the cost now is 100K. That is cybersquatting.

Cybersquatting cases hit record in 2008

Companies and celebrities ranging from Arsenal football club to actress Scarlett Johansson filed a record number of "cybersquatting" cases in 2008 to stop others from profiting from their famous names, brands and events, a United Nations agency said on Sunday.

Web sites in dispute in 2008 included references to Madrid's 2016 Olympics bid, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), Yale University, Research in Motion's Blackberry as well as Arsenal and Johansson, and company names such as eBay, Google and Nestle.

The most common business sector in which complaints arose was pharmaceuticals, due to websites offering sales of medicines with protected names. Other top sectors for complaints were banking and finance, Internet and telecommunications, retail, and food, beverages and restaurants.

What are your thoughts and how do you regulate something like this? I know when we were looking for a name for geekdrop just about every name we clicked on was either in use or someone was cybersquatting on it in hopes of making some money. There are sites that just deal in brokering domain names. Think about it if you buy 20 for a few bucks and just one makes it big then its like hitting the lotto.