Squatting is an accurate description for rent-seeking behavior that levies a cost on the internet community at large. Unlike land -- a physical, real resource -- domain names exist at the discretion of ICANN, the bodies responsible running the root name servers, the infrastructure providers that default to those root name servers, and ultimately, the internet community.
In that regard, they're even more of a manufactured monopoly than any other form of 'intellectual property'; they require no investment in of themselves, and exist at the mercy of the voluntary participation of the network at large.
In this regard, they're most similar to IP address allocations, which are now subject to considerable constraint and no longer freely available for abuse, as providing unrestricted IP allocations is damaging to internet health.
Likewise, supporting rent-seeking domain squatter behavior is damaging to those that would make beneficial use of the domain name space.
"domain squatter behavior is damaging to those that would make beneficial use of the domain name space."
How would you propose to determine beneficial use of a domain name?
For example let's say the domain "pifflesnort.com" was taken by someone in 2003 who decided to use it periodically to post a list of movies they had watched on TV. Now you come along (in 2013) and you want it to do something more than that (say do some serious writing). But it's taken already. Let's go further and say that it wasn't taken so you grabbed it. Now someone else comes along and wants it for the name of their new foundation.
Where exactly do you draw the line and what constitutes "beneficial" use of the domain? Do you plan to have a body of people deciding that?
(just checked by the way and pifflesnort.com is "parked". Of course that doesn't mean it wasn't used last year and that doesn't mean it isn't used for email (or an ftp server etc.) and that doesn't mean that the owner isn't hard at work on a website but hasn't launched yet either.)
I don't think it's difficult to draw a line between a dude keeping a list of movies he watched and a "This domain may be for sale, meanwhile search for shoes and mortgages" clone page.
We shouldn't be afraid to call things out for what they are. The dude with the movie list is doing it because he enjoys it, so what if only a handful of people in the world ever read it. The clone squatter page on the other hand, provides nothing of interest to anyone and exists solely as a means to extort money.
The "dude" with the movie page could be someone who fully intends to actually sell the domain when the right buyer comes along. People already do this type of thing. Put up a "kinda sorta page" that looks and quacks like a duck.
Once again, how are you expecting this is going to get enforced exactly?
As an aside buying and selling domain names is a valid business model and has been around for quite some time.
People who managed to register domains back in the beginning were confronted with almost unlimited inventory and had to decide what to register at the time at what was $100 per domain (for two years later lowered to $70 for two years). [1]There was no guarantee they would be able to sell the domains that they registered. If there was they would have registered more than they did. Later once the top names were grabbed others took advantage and actually spent real money to buy them with the hopes of reselling (say buying something for $50,000 and hoping to wait a number of years and sell it for $300,000). Some of those people have made money and some are still sitting on those domains.
[1] And of course prior to that domains were free but they actually vetted the applications so there was somewhat of a constraint on what you could register. Additionally the utility wasn't as obvious as it was even a year or two later when Network Solutions (the sole bidder on the contract) asked to be able to charge because of the amount of domains registered exceeded the original intent (or whatever) of the contract.
>I don't think it's difficult to draw a line between a dude keeping a list of movies he watched and a "This domain may be for sale, meanwhile search for shoes and mortgages" clone page.
For a human, it's not that difficult. But if you pay that human $15/hour and he does a site every two minutes, it costs you 50 cents to check each website.
In that regard, they're even more of a manufactured monopoly than any other form of 'intellectual property'; they require no investment in of themselves, and exist at the mercy of the voluntary participation of the network at large.
In this regard, they're most similar to IP address allocations, which are now subject to considerable constraint and no longer freely available for abuse, as providing unrestricted IP allocations is damaging to internet health.
Likewise, supporting rent-seeking domain squatter behavior is damaging to those that would make beneficial use of the domain name space.