Microsoft gets tough with domain cybersquatters

Microsoft is set to get tough with people it sees as cybersquatting on domain names and trying to make money out of them.

Their attorney Aaron Kornblum has said that placing a high profile or pop culture trademark in the domain name is a tempting but illegal way to generate revenue.

We’ve already seen domain names registered for Wayne Rooney and Tom Cruise; and Google has kept hold of some domains that it feels others shouldn’t have, so it’s big business and a legal minefield.

You’ve probably seen the kind of pages that hang off catchy domain names – pages of adverts or ad directories that supposedly net the owners some cash.

Microsoft’s peeves in particular are domains such as
windowslivetutorial.com and halochamp.com. They argue that the names
benefit from an apparent association with Microsoft products.
Ironically, one of the sites mentioned doesn’t exist, and the other is
(now at least) a not-for-profit holding page.

Now, I can understand Microsoft getting upset about people using the
name ‘Microsoft’ in their domain names, but what about other words?

Windows – that’s a word. So is ‘halo’ and ‘live’. I mean,
windowslivetutorial.com could be about how to make squeejying more
interesting, and halochamp.com could be a spirituality site.

Grumble grumble. We can’t ‘google’ or ‘pod’, now we can’t rip
off Microsoft on the web either. Shucks.