The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has called for an end to the practice of cybersquatting and for changes to the way disputes between domain name holders are managed.

The consumer watchdog made the call in a submission to a WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) investigation of domain name issues. Cybersquatting is the term used to describe the bad faith registration of a domain name. A domain name is often reserved with no intention to use it, save to prevent another company from using it or to make a profit by selling the name. The practice is bad for all online businesses, not just those directly affected, the ACCC says. The ACCC's position is that cybersquatting should be outlawed and cybersquatters evicted. The watchdog believes that anyone applying for a domain name should be required to show a legal interest in that name. This is at odds with the current policy in .com, for example, which carries no such requirement. In the future, the agency calls for new domains focused on particular types of users, rather than those of the "open slather" variety that it says allow cybersquatters to thrive. The previous WIPO investigation of domain names partly resulted in the institution of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and numbers (ICANN), the world body that manages the domain name system.