question A huge UK company runs .co.uk domain and the .com is available. Is it legal/ethical to buy .com

No, it is not.


https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-02-25-en

Don Gondon said:

No, it is not.

Click to expand...

It's not illegal/unethical? Or it is illegal/unethical?

Depends on one's standards of ethical. For me it is not. For ICANN, WIPO etc. it is not either. Illegal? It might lead to civil legal action, but most likely only a UDRP.

It will likely be cheaper for them to buy it from you than go through UDRP though.
Pretty sure UDRP is expensive.

But if they wanted the .com I’m sure they would have bought it. They probably don’t care for it

If the company only operates in the UK they won't be bothered about the .com. The proof is that they haven't registered it.

99 percent legal
1 percent ethical
90 percent stupid
80 percent shameful

It depends on what the purpose is for buying it. If you think you will sell it to them then yes that's called cybersquatting and they probably wont buy it from you anyway because if they really wanted it they could just register it themselves for $9 so we can already establish it's not worth $9 to them.

If you have some intended use that would not directly compete with them then that's a completely different question. But this is namepros and the way you asked it and asking it here implies you would try to sell it to them and I would just suggest dont bother.