What does cybersquatter mean?
A cybersquatter is someone who registers an internet domain name incorporating a company's name, brand, or trademark without any legitimate right to it, usually hoping to sell the domain back to the trademark owner at a steep markup or to profit from web traffic meant for the genuine site. The word blends 'cyber-', relating to computers and the online world, with 'squatter', evoking someone occupying property they do not own. Cybersquatting emerged as a serious problem during the 1990s internet boom, prompting laws such as the United States' Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 and international dispute procedures under ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. The term carries distinctly negative connotations, implying opportunism and bad faith, though it is sometimes used loosely for anyone who stockpiles domains for speculative resale.
nounA person who registers an internet domain name containing a brand, company name, or other distinctive term they have no legitimate claim to, typically with the intent of selling it back to the trademark owner at a profit or exploiting its traffic.
- A person or entity that registers a domain name containing another's trademark or business name with bad-faith intent to profit from it, usually by selling it to the rightful owner.
- More broadly (informal), anyone who registers desirable domain names purely to hold them for resale at inflated prices.
"The company had to buy the domain from a cybersquatter who had registered it before their official launch."
"After rebranding, the startup discovered a cybersquatter had already claimed their new name and was asking fifty thousand dollars for it."
"The court ruled that the cybersquatter had acted in bad faith when he registered dozens of domains mimicking well-known brands."
Standard plural; used when referring to multiple such registrants, e.g. in reporting on widespread domain-name abuse.
"Regulators have pursued several notorious cybersquatters over the past decade."
Cybersquatting became so rampant that in 1999 the US passed a dedicated law — the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act — just to fight these digital land grabbers.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cybersquatter
The word cybersquatter is formed from 'cyber', a prefix derived ultimately from the Greek 'kybernetes' meaning steersman or governor, which entered English via Norbert Wiener's 1940s field of cybernetics and later gave rise to terms like cyberspace; and 'squatter', from an agent noun based on the verb squat, historically applied to those settling on land without legal title. The compound arose in the mid-1990s as commercial activity moved onto the World Wide Web and disputes over valuable domain names became widespread. It belongs to the large family of late twentieth-century cyber- compounds, alongside cyberspace, cyberpunk, and cybercrime.
Related word forms
How cybersquatter is actually used
Cybersquatter is a modern, informal-to-neutral legal and journalistic term with a strongly negative connotation. It is most often encountered in news reporting on domain disputes and in discussions of trademark law. In formal legal contexts, related terms like 'bad-faith registrant' may appear instead.
Easily confused with cybersquatter
A cybersquatter registers domains that infringe on existing trademarks, whereas a domain investor legitimately buys and sells generic domain names without targeting specific brands.