Domain squatting and domain speculation are quite common with gTLDs, e.g. you register a keyword name like “business.com” and then rent or sell it off for millions. Although SGNIC forbids such practices for .sg domain names, I’ve found some rather wasteful use by a local web hosting company. If you enter cars.sg, maids.com.sg, food.com.sg, property.com.sg, lawyer.com.sg or education.com.sg into your web browser, you’ll find that it either redirects to hosting.com.sg, a plain vanila page with articles from 2006 or an advertisement landing page like below: I don’t deny that there is commercial logic for a web hosting company to want to own premium domain names, so that you can maybe attract clients by going… “host your property classifieds with me and I’ll let you use property.com.sg”. But by hogging these domain names, you’re actually preventing genuine companies from making productive use of them, and using them to entice customers to host with you I feel borders on being unethical. And hosting.com.sg makes no qualms about it and even promoted on their website sometime back: God (and SGNIC) only knows how many such premium domains are owned by them! For the record, I have nothing personal against iLabs Holdings because I don’t even know the people behind the company. Remember the famous case back in 2002, where Mediacorp tried to obtain teletext.com.sg from iLabs and lost? In point 4.10 of the SDRP (download PDF), iLabs stated that… “Mediacorp contacted us and requested us to transfer the domain to them. We declined to do so as we already had development plans.” Six years on, this is all there is on teletext.com.sg: Ask yourself - could Mediacorp have made better use of teletext.com.sg? Unfortunately, the above is just a tiny example of what’s happening locally. Try doctor.com.sg and dentist.com.sg, and you’ll be redirected to a movie.com.sg website - a one-page website made up of just links and lots of advertisements. A whois check reveals that they’re all registered under the same company, Rota Corporation Pte Ltd. Wasteful isn’t it?
The ‘development plans’ excuse is obviously a farce. IMHO, it’s more likely that they could not come to an agreement on price. There may be laws in place to reign in cyber/typosquatting (both locally and abroad), but they are hardly good against those who know how to work around the grey areas and loopholes.
Comment by eugene on July 15, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I agree. While suing domain squatters seems obvious, Internet laws are still so hazy!
Comment by Kym on July 15, 2008 at 6:08 pm
They should pay more attention on the application of the domain. Simply wasting domain names are like wasting petrol. *angry*
Comment by hyperX on July 16, 2008 at 10:29 am
[…] wrote to SGNIC to seek their comments regarding my post on the possible abuse of .sg domain names on 15th July and they finally replied today. Well, I’m truly appalled by the content of the […]
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