Ad claims Yahoo! helps “domain squatters” build websites.
Nat Cohen sent me some screenshots of an ad Yahoo! is running to promote its webhosting services. I think domainers will get a rise out of the message.
Slide 1: Although Nat wasn’t able to capture the first slide, it says something to the effect of “Jerry registered a domain in 2006”.
Slide 2:
Slide 3:
Slide 4:
So there you have it. Yahoo! has helped thousands of “squatters” create their websites.
At least they didn’t say “cybersquatters”.
Domainer Extraordinaire says
The term “squatter” is negative to someone that wants something a squatter beat them to.
Tom says
I wonder if that statement by Yahoo is admissible in a UDRP against a Yahoo client to establish that they are squatting, in violation of the law? Wrth a try…someone will. Glad my site is not a yahoo product.
adam says
How many names do Yahoo hold and “do nothing with” ?
I’m sure a small portion of these 21,000 names are “being squatted” :
http://whoisology.com/email/[email protected]?section=admin
Yahoo! Pot. Kettle
Nat Cohen says
Domainers are often accused of squatting on domain names. If the meaning of “squatter” is evolving to mean simply owning undeveloped domain names, then Yahoo’s use of the term “squatter” in the ad is probably good for domainers.
John Berryhill says
The word “squatter” as casually used in that ad, has no definite meaning.
One of the more interesting passages of the Final Report of the First WIPO Internet Domain Name Process was around what the word “cybersquatting” and what, exactly, the UDRP was supposed to be about:
“170. Before considering in the next paragraph the definition of abusive registration that it is recommended be applied in the administrative procedure, some explanation should be given of the suggested terminology. In popular terms, “cybersquatting” is the term most frequently used to describe the deliberate, bad faith abusive registration of a domain name in violation of rights in trademarks and service marks. However, precisely because of its popular currency, the term has different meanings to different people. Some people, for example, include “warehousing,” or the practice of registering a collection of domain names corresponding to trademarks with the intention of selling the registrations to the owners of the trademarks, within the notion of cybersquatting, while others distinguish between the two terms. Similarly, some consider “cyberpiracy” to be interchangeable with “cybersquatting,” whereas we consider that the former term relates to violation of copyright in the content of websites, rather than to abusive domain name registrations. Because of the elastic meaning of cybersquatting in popular terminology, we have therefore chosen to use a different term abusive registration of a domain namein order to attribute to it a more precise meaning.”
Now, think about that. The entire point was to define a set of elements that would be called “abusive registration”, because everyone has their pet definition of “cybersquatting”.
Nat Cohen says
Thanks John. Interesting that even back in 1999, “cybersquatting” had multiple meanings – some more negative than others.
John Berryhill says
Nat, the larger importance of that passage relates to the notion that UDRP panelists can go off into other parts of the UDRP, such as paragraph 2, in order to augment the definition of “abusive registration”. The hand-wringing at that point of the WIPO Report appears to be the reason why Paragraph 4 of the UDRP starts with the phrase “This Paragraph” defines what the administrative proceeding is concerned with determining. The UDRP is not about “cybersquatting”. It is about “abusive registration” as defined by Paragraph 4.
Joseph Peterson says
They don’t seem to be using “squatter” in the pejorative sense domainers are used to being slapped in the face with.
It’s an odd choice. But if they mean no harm by it, then by all means let Yahoo put a positive spin on the term. That can’t hurt.
Andrew Allemann says
Whenever one of my non domainer friends says they’re trying to buy a domain name that’s “just being squatted” or was “registered by a squatter”, I encourage them to not use those terms when speaking with the domain owner. Although I don’t find the term particularly offensive (as opposed to cybersquatter, which I think of in a legal/trademark sense), it’s best not to use it.
Henry says
Hopefully, Yahoo’s interpretative use of the term will help dilute the perjorative meaning of the term as it applies to domain names otherwise, it’s just adding fuel to the fire.