Richard Dudley

Registrar-turned-cybersquatter Dotster is worried we're running out of domain names:

Dotster Inc, which is currently trying to fight off a cybersquatting lawsuit filed by a major US retailer, said the large number of domains being registered worldwide points to a possible "drought" in future and, in a press release, plugged a number of services it offers to help customers find a suitable domain.

(source: http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=4EFB00BF-D653-461E-B4E8-7FCC52080182)

"The growth rate of people registering dot-coms has just skyrocketed," Dotster Vice President for Marketing George DeCarlo said. "There's definitely a shortage of usable domain names in dot-com," added Antony Van Couvering, a principal in Names@Work, an Internet consulting firm in New York City.

(source: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/52141.html)

Given Dotster's alleged "domain kiting" practices, it's tough to take their warning as being in the public interest.  Besides, they make their money selling domain names, so if they can create some hysteria, then get ICANN to approve a new TLD, well, that many more domains to sell or squat.

Mozart never worried about running out of musical notes, even though there's an even more finite number of those.  Most of the obviously catchy names are probably sucked up, but look how many new sites are being created every day with names you never would have imagined (Flickr, Squidoo, Technorati, Memeorandum, etc.).  Names are as much creativity and marketing as they are availability.  In Pennsylvania, there can be only one The Bloomery.  We have the fictitious name registered, and no one else can use it.  So new shops have to think of another name, no matter how much they may like ours.  There's another one in Massachusetts, and until we didn't renew the obvious .BIZ domain name, they were kind of screwed for their website (I think they now have it).

Established businesses, especially small businesses, are the ones who have suffered most.  My friend Cheryl found that parkwayflorist.com was taken, so she had to register parkwayflorist-pgh.com.  Not as catchy, but if that's what people see on your vans, or on your business cards and delivery tags, that's what your customers will use.  If you're a new business, and if a website is going to be important, you might want to check domain name availability.  If you're established, you may have to get creative with domain names.  Perhaps good variations of your business name and location are taken, how about business type and location?

The other The Bloomery just has to deal with the fact we got the domain name first.  The real aggravation is domain squatters or domain kiters.  The problem is that a domain dispute is so time consuming, expensive and complicated that business owners find it easier to be extorted than legally correct, and end up shelling out $500 for a domain name, as opposed to the $1500 UDRP filing fee (just to get the ball rolling).  Fix that process and some of the problems will go away.