"What You Need, When You Need It"

Have you ever been surfing the Internet and stumbled across a website that looked like the picture above? Is the motto in my title familiar to you? If so, you've run afoul of the cybersquatter. Cybersquatters are lowlifes who profit off of foolish or ignorant web users and sometimes the hard work of others.

In order to make an independent website, one needs a "domain name" - the URL. Many websites, like the blog you're reading now, have domains provided by a parent ocmpany - Google - for free. If you want your very own domain with no ties to other companies, though, you have to pay for it.

What cybersquatters like to do is get good URLs before a legitimate business or person can. They then turn the website into a cesspool of advertising, but add a few things to try and trick people who aren't paying attention into thinking that the site is a legitimate resource for information or media. They'll also offer to sell the address to anyone who wants it - at a very high price so they can buy more domains to squat on. I sometimes fell prey to these sites when I was younger. If you click on any of their links or make any searches on their search bar, the cybersquatters make money.

One example of a cybersquatter is "Goggle.com", a seething mass of ads that seeks to trap people who accidentally misspell "Google" when typing in their address bar. A rumor made the rounds back in 2006 that Goggle would infect your computer with unstoppable viruses if you visited it. While not true, Goggle is not a website you should visit, as its owners are obviously profiting off of barely legal means and they know it.

Here's how to avoid giving these jerks money:

* Avoid typing addresses directly into the URL bar. Use bookmarks and search engines instead.
* If you see a website that looks like the one above (especially if it has the motto "What you need, when you need it"), immediately hit the Back button and do not visit that site again.
* Use a little common sense. If you find a website called, for instance, "cats.com" and it has pet care links but also links to movie downloads and sports news on the same page, it's a cybersquatter. (I tried cats.com to see if it was a cybersquatter, and although it doesn't have the unrelated links it is still very suspicious looking and I am certain it is not a real site. Do not ever visit cats.com.)
* Adblock and Noscript will protect you if you accidentally visit a cybersquatter.
* You can avoid "Goggle" by making Google your homepage. Then you never need to type Google into the URL bar.

Here's a great article about cybersquatters:
http://thecoffeedesk.com/news/index.php/2009/06/23/what-you-need-when-you-need-it/