5 years ago... Compaq spends $3m on altavista.com address

29.07.98 Compaq confirmed today that it is negotiating with a Californian businessman to buy the altavista.com web address.

A source close to Compaq said it is prepared to pay $3m for the address. It is the latest in a spate of vendors paying out for the highest profile internet domain names for their products.

A company spokesman said: "Compaq can confirm it is currently talking with Jack Marshall, the businessman who currently owns the dot-com registration, but no final agreement has been reached."

Input analyst, James Eibisch, said this expensive problem is going to get worse for corporates trying to get a presence on the web. "It's a warning to all companies developing their internet strategy to get their domain name situation straight," he said.

29.07.03 There have been a great many changes over the past five years in this area. While companies are still advised to buy-up all possible domains involving their brand name to ensure against potential cyber squatting cases, there are lines of recourse open now which are possibly a lot more appealing - if not free from hassle - than shelling out millions to recover your domain.

Around the late nineties there was a spate of cases involving enterprising individuals who had bought up high-profile domain names with a view to selling them on - but eventually judges wised up to this form of extortion. Now companies and individuals can stake a claim on a domain even if it is owned by somebody else - providing they can prove they have a stronger claim - normally where somebody has speculatively registered a domain in the hope of selling it.

High-profile cases have seen the likes of Madonna, Julia Roberts, Playboy and Liverpool Football Club successful in disputing domains registered using their name as the tide turned on the cyber squatters.

Even Vanessa Feltz got involved.