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Cybersquatting, the Procter & Gamble way

There be one rule for the rich and one for t' poor, I tell yer

Procter & Gamble has announced it is selling off nearly 100 domain names that it has no plans for.

The monster company's huge number of recognised brand names - including Pringles, Pantene, Ariel and Crest - will of course not be available, but there are some real gems here, including flu.com, beautiful.com, romantic.com, scent.com, sensual.com and thirst.com.

Procter & Gamble had no idea what these names might be worth and blimey were they surprised when Greatdomains.com reckoned it could get about $1 million for flu.com. Still, that's just a part of life when you're an international conglomerate with gazillion-pound turnovers. Oh ho, chuckle chuckle.

But wait a cotton-picking minute. Why is it that whenever anyone puts up a domain name for sale they get out the red-hot brand of CYBERSQUATTER! Yet when Procter & Gamble does it, it's welcomed as a great opportunity? Shurely shume mishtake.

No, not really, just the American ideal that a rich man is a good man. Make enough money and everything you do is right. Companies, being richer, are therefore more important than individuals (so they can pressure them to hand over legitimately held URLs) and big companies are more important than small ones. Procter & Gamble is more important than just about every company on the planet.

And that is why we should all applaud P&G to have the foresight, the nous, the goddamn balls to understand where the Internet was going and get in there first. I tell you boy, that's why it's got as far as it has today. ®

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