Claim Jumping

Los Angeles County discovered that it had become an inadvertent spammer and porn-host earlier this year, thanks to the growth of domain hijacking by spammers. Once a fairly benign form of "squatting" in unused space, domain hijacking has become a way for the operators of shady online businesses to avoid blacklists and filters.

Two observations: first, registrars clearly need to get their acts together and make hijacking involve something a little more challenging than spoofing an email address. Second, a number of European courts have been much more inclined than their U.S. counterparts to hold ISPs responsible for the ways their online space is used. I wonder if that'll persist when, like LA, some of those governments discover that they're not really capable of meeting that standard themselves.