Don't pay off a cybersquatter!(laws against it)(Government Activity)

Electronic Business, March, 2000 by Brown, Marc E.

Imagine a car parking in front of your driveway and demanding $10,000 to move. You'd call the police and the car would be towed in a few hours! Yet the anything-goes atmosphere of cyberspace had made the comparable act of mass cybersquatting--buying a block of domain names for resale-- almost a legitimate business.

Until recently, cybersquatting did not clearly violate any law. At the end of last year, however, a double-barreled shot was taken at cybersquatters. President Clinton signed the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers implemented the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy.

Both the Anticybersquatting Act and ICANN Policy target the "bad faith" registration and use...

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