Domain Hijacking, and Cyber-Squatting Awareness

May 2005

Top Level Domain names or TLDs, are new website name extensions. Current well known TLDs include '.com', which is used by most for-profits, '.gov'; government organizations, '.org', used by non-profit organizations and 'name.edu', which designate educational institutions. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), who controls web naming conventions, has added several new TLDs, including '.eu' for European Union and sponsored names (sTLD) such as '.travel' for the travel industry and '.jobs' that is restricted to use by the human resource profession.

Domain hijacking is the practice of stealing an organization or individual website name. The hijacker could send the current owner a phony or misleading registration transfer approval form or submit a fraudulent transfer authorization to the current website host. Website owners who are not vigilant can fall prey to these practices.

In Cyber Squatting, a person may register well-known names or words, or common typographical errors of popular names as websites. The registrant then offers to sell the website, often for a considerable price, or diverts the web traffic to a website where they make money from advertising or product sales.