When is a domain name squatter not a domain name squatter?  When they are in the business of domaining.

There is a business out there based around the buying, selling and developing of Internet domain names not to reap the rewards of the web site, but instead to gain a profit on the resell of the domain name.  You can think of it as real estate.  Lets say you buy three houses, fix them up – but in all reality, you don’t need three houses – so you sell off two of them, after fixing them up.

A domainer (somebody in the domaining business) often builds up a portfolio of domain names, according to various criteria.  Most domainers sit on their stack of nice domain names, and don’t do anything with them.  They just keep them as an investment for the chance of reselling them later on down the road.  Now you might ask, how is this not domain name squatting?

Well, domain name squatting is more related to trademark infringement.  Those who stay on the legal side of things will stay away from domain names that infringe on intellectual property.  However, as with any business there are areas where the good guys and the bad guys mesh together to make a gray area of business.

As of December 2006, there are an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 individuals globally who make buying and selling domain names a part of their business.