Seemingly well regarded PCWorld.com writer David Coursey gets mixed up about cybersquatters, ahem domainers :

Fight Back Against Cybersquatters

The article kicks off with this:

“The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the #$&%$ pond scum who hijacked the name of a not-for-profit animal rescue group. Not that they deserve protection.”

First up, Im surprised to see such a learned writer not quite understanding the term “hijacking”; being that he goes on to suggest later in the article that the hypothetical group mentioned never actually owned the hypothetical name for which the nasty “cybersquatters” had “hijacked”.

Of course, no domainer I know would ever have over-to-dinner anyone who passes off or squats or preys on those out to do good and especially so for those who squat on a charity or on those who build something not-for-profit. But come on, some of the terminology he uses comes across as being both holier-than-thou when it comes to domain parking and also a little too close to the old “all domainers are bad” attitude we’re all so commonly used to.

With reference to domain parking, seemingly Mr Coursey distances himself from having too much awareness on the subject:

“Up popped one of those “This domain for sale” pages that also included a bunch of paid links to various pet-released services. It looks as though these are Google AdSense placements, though I could be wrong. The page doesn’t even have a listing for our actual site, a small courtesy that is too much to expect from cybersquatters.”

Ok, before I address this part, let me take a shot at the site hosting this article.

One of the largest computer retail outlets in the UK (in fact probably the largest) is also called, you guessed it, PCWorld. They operate online under the domain pcworld.co.uk.

Hmm, now call me Miss Picky (careful on the pronunciation) but, seeing as though pcworld.co.uk was first registered in 1996 and PCWorld.com never came into existence until 1998, Im not seeing any “small courtesy listing” anywhere on the PCWorld.com site informing visitors where the other “pcworld” resides – I’ve done a search – and I’ve also made this typo error myself when looking for the UK site. Im guessing many others (domaintools confirms this) have done likewise.

So, is this yet another example of a nasty cybersquatter benefitting from anothers mark, perhaps?

Let’s now disect some of Mr Coursey’s other comments:

“Meanwhile, what can be done about cybersquatters?
We could significantly reduce squatter activity if the paid search companies would simply refuse to provide ads to sites unless they could verify the site was actually legit”

He goes on to use (when referring to cybersquatters) other terms that feel a little too scattergun to be solely directed towards just squatters:

“these people have no shame and will do anything for a buck”

“Google and other paid search providers could take the wind right out of these so-and-so’s sails.“

“God has a special plan (and place) for these people.”

Like i say, on the face of it, it all looks like a bonafide pop at genuine cybersquatters but is it just me who is reading between the lines on this? Bearing in mind also that the author’s example of one his “couple of hundred” domains americanwarning.com conveniently points to a 1&1 holding page. Bless him.

Perhaps if Mr Coursey didn’t want to raise my suspicions as to his true intent with his article he should have instead used his SMBideas.com domain as his example – incidentally a domain parked at Sedo and showing adult links.

Hey-ho