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I'm not trying to give you a hard time, defaultuser, I'm just trying to understand your definition of cybersquatting and how you are able to register anything generic if you are so worried about being a squatter on generic terms used generically.
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I'm not. But .CO is mostly about defensive regges, borderline behaviour.
What I have hard time with is domainers that insisting that everything they do should be legal. That domainers insist that UDRP and ACPA is all anti-domainer. That domainers insist that *everything* is fair - they could have registered the name themselves if they wanted it....
Profit driven motive is a something that has moved civilization forward. It is the same force that drives civilization backwards.
.CO is mostly about defensive regges and profit driven from the threat of reputation damage.
Multiple times I said I'm not necessarily judging a domainer action. Most domainers have an obvious TM domain and KNOW IT. Most domainers make up stories - negotiations are less about negotiating and more about spinning a yarn.Most domain sale announcements are LIES or not transparent. The industry is a sham. I don't have much against it - I've made money from it - the difference is that I'm honest about it where most people put on their self righteous holier than thou cloak.
Take .XXX - all the people that investing that deny they are part of the porn industry (despite SIGNING ELECTRONICALLY a document saying they are). Take all those people that sell names they don't own. People that pretend to be who they aren't - make up business partners - inflate sales. Domaining is mostly anonymous - be totally different if it was transparent.
That's all. Off topic for .CO except that the reality of .CO is that 50% of fails are "defensive" or "expanding their domain coverage" and 20% are shortcuts and the rest are whatever they are.
Buying a .CO to sell to someone who owns all other TLDs is either "clever business" or "cybersquatting" or somewhere in between. I'm pretty sure if you had FoodForThought.Com/net/org/tv and you used it as a primary source of income - you'd be less than pleased if I came along with a .CO selling it for $1000. Now what if you weren't in the domain businesses? You're not aware of drop catching, etc. You just expect no one else to have taken it (why would they, you own every TLD). You're more than just a little "gee" mad as you say.
What happens if you don't pay $1000? It's generic phrase - maybe I'll put some food porn on it. Now we're a little more concerned. Where do you draw the line at what's ok and what's not? And that's my point: where do you draw the line? You can't because each person has a different one. Have you ever seen brokers that hold domains? They have disclaimers that say things like "3rd party systems put ads on them - if it's your Trademark I apologize - I don't know what ads are showing and I intend to develop it later in a way that doesn't infringe - honest!" This is really what goes on.
And then we "non noobs" tell new "investors" that everything you do in domaining is legitimate.
.CO is primarily in existence to take advantage of these gray trademark areas. Clever "investors" are doing fine working these .CO borderline infringing angles.
I have no problem with ManualLinkBuilding.co being sold to ManualLinkBuilding.co.uk - but to pretend that it wasn't a domain bought to sell at an inflated price to that one owner is just bs. So the new owner is happy. Fine. It's a win-win, I guess. It's just like the single mom that gives a lap dance - she enjoys it too you know. It's not exploitative at all (though I think the exploitation is actually on the sad desperate lonely men that need to pay for that). The only difference between my definition of Cybersquatting and the Legal US definition of Cybersquatting is that a registered TM didn't exist. That's a line.. to some it's an important distinction. To me it's not.
to me, a lot of .Co is borderline unethical/immoral
Laws are there for a reason that goes farther than just drawing a line up to which we can go and not be doing anything wrong. It's a legal boundary; however it's not a moral / ethical one.
I could go on but every time I say this people tell me to leave the industry if I hate it that much. This misses the point completely but it always happens. I hate the industry of my day job too- unfortunately I need to eat, live somewhere and block out the people that get hurt. I do that. I live with myself because I'm not a bad person and I know that. I can't fix the world but I'll at least admit that I don't try.
If I could start an anarchist state, I would. If someone tells me how to do that, I will. In the meantime I live within the morally corrupt society we live in - domaining being a major morally bankrupt ghetto at the center of the that society. Yes, I pinch my nose and play there.. the stink can be manageable.
