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21/6/2007 12:22 GMT
ag-IP-news
Hundreds Take Stand on YouChoose.net Against Domain Name Parking
Special to ag-IP-news Agency
THORNTON, PENNSYLVANIA - Domain name parking, also known as cybersquatting, prevents millions of the top-quality website domain names from being used by businesses who can best benefit from them. Instead, individuals or companies with no association with the domain names use sophisticated software to grab all available names, and keep those deemed most valuable with the intent of reselling them to the highest bidder.
The result is that people who have a legitimate purpose for those names either find them unavailable or priced out of reach.
âA petition was launched on YouChoose.net at the end of last week,â Co-Founder of YouChoose Mike Dever said.
âAnd it immediately attracted hundreds of signatures from concerned website owners. We realize that the issue of domain name parking is very complex,â continued Dever.
âMany people reserve domain names for legitimate purposes, but there are also people who are grabbing thousands of domain names - obviously many more than they have legitimate uses for - and profiting by selling Google ads on them or auctioning them to the highest bidder. The YouChoose.net petition is intended to draw attention to the issue and result in action being taken to prevent the most egregious abuses,â he noted.
Cybersquatters are able to profit because it costs them less than $10 per year to hold a domain name, and while they wait for a buyer willing to pay big money for each of their domain names, they can set up dummy websites and use services such as Google AdSense to display ads on those sites. This allows them to earn revenues that are sufficient to offset their annual costs.
âAs long as services such as Googleâs Adsense program continues to allow ads to be displayed on the parked domains, this practice will continue unless the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numers (ICANN) steps in to stop it,â Dever pointed out. âThatâs what the YouChoose cybersquatting petition is trying to make happen.â
YouChoose.net, is a social network specifically developed for people to turn their "Passions into Actions" by setting up and supporting 'Pledge Campaigns' and 'Petitions' that allow them to promote their cause to others.
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