Domains & Cybersquatting

Charles Carreon

A domain name is a business tool. It is cyber real estate, an electronic storefront, a roadside billboard and yellow pages ad, all rolled into one. Rather than having wide investment value as properties that anyone can put to work, they have specific value for each individual business owner. It was evident from the early days of “cybersquatting,” that most cybersquatters had no idea what to do with valuable domain names like “PaineWebber.com,” except to offer to sell it to the Paine Webber brokerage house. Please note that Paine Webber recently lost its identity in a merger, and PaineWebber.com now redirects after a few seconds to “UBSPaineWebber.com.”

I'd like to tell you that you can obtain an insurance policy for your valuable domain names. As a practical matter, if you have theft insurance, you should list your domain names among your possessions; however, I don't know of any cases that have litigated an insurance claim by a domain name owner under a personal property policy. Inevitably, such a case will arise, and insurance companies will get around to insuring domain names. For the moment, I don't know of a carrier to refer you to who would sell you an insurance policy for your valuable domain names.