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The TCP/IP Guide  9  TCP/IP Application Layer Protocols, Services and Applications (OSI Layers 5, 6 and 7)       9  Name Systems and TCP/IP Name Registration and Name Resolution            9  TCP/IP Name Systems: Host Tables and Domain Name System (DNS)                 9  TCP/IP Domain Name System (DNS)                      9  DNS Name Registration, Public Administration, Zones and Authorities

DNS Second-Level and Lower Domains, Delegation of Registration Authority and Public Registration 1 2 3 4 DNS Name Space Administrative Hierarchy Partitioning: DNS Zones of Authority

“Corporate Warfare”

A particularly ugly type of conflict is sometimes seen where companies intentionally try to take business from each other by registering names that have nothing to do with their own companies. An example would be if Burger King had tried to register “mcdonalds.com” and use it to advertise Burger King products. (Which they didn't do, I might add, so please nobody sue me! J)

Another example is when companies try to use alternate TLDs, such as registering “burgerking.org” to confuse people trying to find “burgerking.com”. In fact, many companies have taken the step of registering their names in many different TLDs to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

Some ambitious (to choose a nice term) individuals, recognizing early on the potential value of certain names, registered large volumes of names with the hopes of reselling them. Many people condemned this as exploitative, and the term cybersquatting was created to refer to this type of activity. Unfortunately, a lot of money was made this way, and there are many domain names that to this day cannot be used because they have been “reserved” indefinitely by people or individuals who will never use them.

Another type of somewhat-diabolic creativity has been displayed by people who seek to take advantage of the inability of some of us to spell. For example, if you were a competitor of a large company called Superb Transceivers Inc., which registered “superbtransceivers.com”, you might register “superbtranscievers.com” and redirect traffic from there to your own domain. Another example takes advantage of the common mix-up between “O” (the letter) and “0” (the number). For example, a software company once registered “micros0ft.com”, much to the chagrin of the Redmond, Washington software giant.

DNS Second-Level and Lower Domains, Delegation of Registration Authority and Public Registration 1 2 3 4 DNS Name Space Administrative Hierarchy Partitioning: DNS Zones of Authority