Domain Grabbing

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The term domain grabbing (also: domain warehousing) refers to the (sometimes abusive) registration of a larger number of Internet domain names.

In contrast to cybersquatting, in which primarily known company, brand or product names are registered as domains and offered for purchase to the respective rights holder, domain grabbing largely refers to the registration of generic terms. For example, words of daily use are registered in all conceivable forms and top-level domains (e.g. salary.example, more salary.example, top salary.example).

Summary
The aim is either to sell these domains profitably or, through their active use, to suggest to visitors that they are a website on a specific topic or term, although the content has little to do with the term used as a domain name. Thus, pseudo search engines are often operated only to market the inserted advertising links without offering the advantages of real search engines. Often you also use automated generated content or a collection of pure advertising links, the so-called domain parking.

This method is particularly popular with dialer providers who use the awareness of a domain and register a similarly written domain for themselves, the so-called typosquatting.

A distinction between domain grabbing in the sense of hamsters for different purposes and domain grabbing as part of domain trading (registration of domains in stock for sale) is hardly possible – both include the registration of domains in a larger number than for direct own use. Although this hamster is classified in many cases in domain name law as a legal aspect of domain trading, spectacular abuse cases are also known again and again.

According to current case law, the mass registration of generic terms, which by their very nature cannot be registered as trademarks, is not anti-competitive and therefore neither civil nor criminally relevant.

Controversial cases and consequences
EURid, the registry of the top-level domain eu, took legal action against a registrant of 10,000 .eu domains in 2007, who accused her of not being an EU citizen and therefore not being eligible. This was already the second known case of abusive domain grabbings in the eu top-level domain. Earlier this year, EURid had cracked down on a group of companies based in Cyprus, which it alleged had gained an unfair advantage with the help of 400 phantom registrars at the start of the landrush phase of the eu domain, thus registering 74,000 domains not for real customers, but only for the purpose of a later auction.

Regardless of systematic abuse cases, domain grabbing as well as cybersquatting generally contributes to the