[vlad]

First, Dropbox has not commented on why Dropbox.com redirects to them, nor about their lawsuit of the domain owner. Therefore, this is a horrible news article, with an assumption that Dropbox holds an new ownership stake in the domain.

Second, it's actually quite possible Dropbox asked the .com holders to forward traffic to the real site in order for both parties to value the domain's contribution to downloads/upsales from type-in traffic (is it 90% new users? Or almost always those who have an account?). This would mean TechCrunch hurts Dropbox by increasing their cost to buy/license the domain.

Third, we can't tell who owns the domain, so it could still be the same party! The .com could forward to the real site for just one day to tease Dropbox by sending it visitors for just one day. This also means they could point to the real site for a month, then a competitor later on after links start rolling in.

Finally, I don't think this owner, nor Justintv.com, are cybersquatters since they owned their domains since the 90's.

[dzohrob]

Evenflow owns dropbox.com now. Check http://whois.sc/dropbox.com .

[vlad]

Yes, looks like the .com turned off Whois privacy, and Dropbox does own it now (most Whois services still point to Domains by Proxy, including when I checked). But since Dropbox didn't have a comment for TechCrunch on why the domain pointed to the real site while it was still privacy-protected, the headline of the article didn't make sense.

[invisible]

I would say putting ads and turning a profit by advertising competitors of the brand your domain is mimicking would be considered squatting a domain.

[slig]

It's the price you have to pay for choosing a brand name whose .com you don't own/can't buy.

[invisible]

Dealing with squatters is the price we as web developers/entrepreneurs must pay? If domain names actually required a registered business to purchase a domain name that'd make perfect sense. Unfortunately I could go buy sligenterprises.com and you'd be out of luck if that's what your product was best represented as (except for suing me). I'd amount it to putting up a big ass sign, waiting for someone to also use a similar name, then you change the sign to have a competitor's phone number beneath the name. How is the legalese in that "you are screwed?"

[slig]

I agree with you, but in this case the original owner wasn't a squatter.