It would be a very bad precedent if an owner of a domain name can gain rights to the same name in another tld just by his own site becoming popular.
US trademark law is limited to (a) commercial context and (b) possibility of confusion. If you aren't selling anything, or even if you are commercial but are in a different line of business, you should never be troubled by any trademark claims. This is how the old Beatles record label and the computer company can coexist with the 'Apple' name.
Probably many of us here are in similar situations - I have a domain name for example in .net and .org, but someone else has the .com. I don't want to take the .com from whoever it is (not without their consent, that is), and I shouldn't to have to pay for lawyers to fight them off if they make the name better known for their unrelated site.
It's not that it's 'more popular.' That's not the debate. The debate is that the .com site is being squatted. If it was some 4chan interior design company with even some legitimate business, then the debate would be over. Do you think it's a bad precedent if Google becomes popular and you can show that a person subsequently registered all the single permutation misspellings of Google and then tried to sell them back to Google? Or even worse, told them they would post porn redirects at all the sites if they didn't buy them at huge markup? Go read about the Whitehouse.com history.
Define squatted (or define legitimate use) - if the owner is using the domain for email and simply finds serving advertising provides some income, is that squatting; given there is no confusion issue. If they have a project in hand, or bought it to give to their child when they're 18, or ... are all those squatting?
How about, as for me, they renewed for a client and then the client didn't pay but now wants "their" domain back. Is me having that and serving ads to recoup costs (rather than wasting time on courts), is that squatting?
>Or even worse, told them they would post porn redirects at all the sites if they didn't buy them at huge markup? //
Extortion and practices intended to affect the business of a RTM are already unlawful of course.
The courts can decide squatted/legitimate use. I mean, were you using [email protected] before 4chan.org was starting up? And for that matter why would you be saving 4chan.com for your child? Are you 'speculating' that it will be worth more over time? Or is their name Mrs. Four Chan? It should be easy to make your claim if it's bona fide.
Again, this is a 'I know it when I see it.'
That client thing is shitty and that sounds like actually you have a great argument. Especially if you just post your negative blog post/review of that company redirected from that domain.
It's less about what you do with the domain and more about the method of choosing the domain. If your domain is blatantly copying a company name, and it's not your company name, you're not in a strong position. By copying I mean something like paypa1.com, not something like paypalsucks.com.
If you have a domain where you do nothing on it, but it's not copying anything either, that's squatting but nobody is going to care.
If you hold a client's site hostage for not paying, yeah that sounds like squatting. So what, that's not a value judgement.
Alright but if the definition of squatting doesn't help with the value judgement, ie some squatting is justified, then that's no great help towards deciding how to delineate allowable behaviour wrt domain holding, is it? I considered the purpose of the definition of squatting was to define behaviour which was considered unhelpful and was to be discouraged in some way.
On the flip side, I had a .com domain on backorder (I have the .co.uk), which was actually released.
I didn't get it (regardless of the back-order), but it got bought up by a domain squatting company who now want about $4K for it. It is currently parked with a horrendous page that doesn't even render correctly.
Now if my my .co.uk site were to get popular (hah!), I fully expect that price tag to increase.
If you have a trademark, file a complaint with ICANN. It will almost certainly be handed to you. Usually without even hearing from the other party. I've both lost and gained domains in this fashion.
If you have a trademark and the current domain owner is simply squatting, you should file a dispute with ICAAN. It has a process specifically intended for your situation.
I remember when Gap (the American clothes company) sued Genesis Access Point (the Irish dial-up ISP) and won, back in the 90s. That's when it all started going to shit.
US trademark law is limited to (a) commercial context and (b) possibility of confusion. If you aren't selling anything, or even if you are commercial but are in a different line of business, you should never be troubled by any trademark claims. This is how the old Beatles record label and the computer company can coexist with the 'Apple' name.
Probably many of us here are in similar situations - I have a domain name for example in .net and .org, but someone else has the .com. I don't want to take the .com from whoever it is (not without their consent, that is), and I shouldn't to have to pay for lawyers to fight them off if they make the name better known for their unrelated site.