Understanding the Terms of Cyber Piracy

Cyber Piracy is an umbrella term for online deceptive practices on the web that include:

Cybersquatting is defined as registering, trafficking in, or using domain names that are identical or confusingly similar to trademarks with the bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of the trademarks.

Cybersquatters fall into a variety of categories and engage in cybersquatting for a variety of reasons which range from greed, to political activism, to malevolence or innocent mistake.

Sometimes cybersquatters believe they have done nothing wrong because they are using only a variation of a trademark; because they believe that infringing behavior is legal on the Internet, or because they don't acknowledge proprietary rights on the Internet. However, cybersquatters may also hold domain names for ransom, use them for infringing purposes or use them for more nefarious purposes.

A cybersquatter may offer a domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price, an act which some deem to be extortion. He or she may put up derogatory remarks about the person or company the domain is meant to represent in an effort to encourage the subject to buy the domain from them. Often cybersquatters wait for a registered domain name to expire, then register and place derogatory information on the site. Read about what happened to the Center for Arkansas Legal Services.

Domain Parking
Domain parking is similar to cybersquatting, but it is a little more sophisticated. It takes advantage of “type-in” traffic -- people who type in the address based on an assumption of what it will be.

For example, Pine Tree Legal Assistance's website is www.ptla.org, not www.pinetreelegal.org. The latter is a “fake site” which, like many domain parking sites, often displays links with terms substantially similar to that of PTLA’s actual site. Each of the links goes to the website of an advertiser. Each time someone clicks onto one of those advertiser’s links, the domain holder gets a fee. This may be particularly confusing to inexperienced users since often the term on the website and the advertisement are not substantially related. (For example on the www.pinetreelegal.com site the term “child custody” appears, but the link goes to an online dating service.)

Often domain parkers try to sell the URL (much like cyber squatters). Some, however, may make enough income from the advertising click-through that they are uninterested in giving up the URL.

Although ICANN (the Internet Corporation for the Assignment of Names and Numbers) provides an arbitration process through which domain name disputes can be resolved, this process does not afford appropriate remedies in all cases. Unfortunately, the process is also lengthy and expensive and may not present the most appealing option for legal aid programs seeking to retrieve a URL from a domain parker or cyber squatter.

Deceptive Ad-Words
Another aspect of cyber piracy involves false advertising and deceptive trade practices. Each of the major search engines -- Google, Yahoo and MSN -- sell ad-words as a way for companies and organizations to advertise their products via their websites. When a user searches those words, the search engine prominently displays sites that have purchased particular ad-words. Often the title of the link in the search engine includes the words the person searched for such as “Pine Tree Legal Assistance” or “Vermont Legal Aid”.

For sophisticated web users, these “sponsored links” are identifiable. However, for a person new to online searching or a person vunerable to enticement by language promising free or low cost legal service, these advertisements can be extremely confusing – and ultimately, costly if pursued.