What is cybersquatting you may ask? Well according to Wikipedia, cybersquatting is is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.

While you may be thinking "I would never do that!", there are many people who do without knowing it. For example, if you were to register "TomHanks.com", you could technically be sued by the actor. Why? Well simply because even though the name isn't "trademarked", it is commonly associated with the actor and could be claimed as his property in a court of all.

Just as a good thumb rule: Don't register domains that contain trademarks or celebrity names.

Very true, bog problems if you dont follow the rules.

This is a good post. Out of all the problems beginners run into this one seems to be the post popular.

Thanks for explaining the meaning of cybersquat. When I first saw the post I thought it must be a joke but I can see now that it isn't at all. A lot of people choose names that are similar to something or someone famous but mispell it on purpose. Would this also be considered cybersquatting?

Pretty sure that's also considered cybersquatting, Ozzie. I'm really against it, many people feel domainers are the same thing as cybersquatters so they look down on us, but I see a difference between the two business policies.

When I chose my domain name of ozzieblackcat.com, I thought it was pretty original. (it's for my black cat named Ozzie) Well, after I'd chosen and paid for the domain, my husband told me there is a fireworks company called blackcat. I was pretty surprised. I'm sure there are plenty of people, especially newbies, who make these mistakes by not doing enough research first.

I remember a few years ago, hearing about people who would intentionally register domains using proper names that they thought would be eventually wanted by those specific people.

I think that may have been before a precedent-setting court case?

The only time you'll encounter such a problem is if your site becomes very popular. Otherwise no one will know you site exsists for the most part.