Cybersquatting is the act of registering a domain name that is the same as, or confusing similar to, the trademark or another and then offering to sell that domain name back to the trademark owner.
As long as the cybersquatters own the domain name, the trademark owner cannot register its own trademark as a domain name. In this sense, the cybersquatters breaches the moral right of the trademark owner to use its trademark in the digital world as his domain name.
According to US Federal Law known as Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, cybersquatting 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.
Cybersquatting is costly for businesses which must attempt to register all variations of a name to protect their domain name rights from would-be cybersquatters. Large corporations may have to register thousands of domain names across the globe just to protect their basic brands and trademarks.
A domain name is considered to be legal when the person or business who owns the name has had a legitimate business under that name for some period of time. Companies such as Christian Dior, Nike, Deutsche Bank, and even Microsoft have had to fight or pay to get the domain name corresponds to their company’s name away from cybersquatters.
Cybersquatting
