Did he really say that? I wasn't going to comment on this until I hear what ICANN CEO and President Paul Twomey has to say about it, but since many other sites are already buzzing (and possibly jumping to conclusions) about it, I'll offer my initial thoughts on the developing 

brouhaha. 

It started when an article at GulfNews.com (a site that covers developments in the Middle East) had Twomey lumping domainers into the same category as cybersquatters  and typosquatters when he spoke at an Internet conference in Dubai last week. When commenting about the possible introduction of new TLDs and IDNs that would allow local languages to be used on both sides of the dot,  reporter Scott Shuey quoted Twomey as saying that while many would welcome the ability to have domain names in their native languages, there are a number of downsides, including cyber-squatting, typo-squatting and domaining. 

Shuey added (and the absence of quotation marks in his article leads me to believe these are his words, not Twomey's) "Domaining, which is technically legal, is still somewhat controversial. Domainers purchase non-trademarked domain 

Dr. Paul Twomey
ICANN President and CEO

names in the hopes of either reselling the name at a profit. Some websites have resold for millions of dollars. Other domainers "park" the domain in order to generate advertising revenue. A parked site usually reroutes users to a website that contains ads. While a number of international laws and internal procedures discourage squatting, domaining is going to be an issue, Twomey said."

My initial reaction when I read this article is that Dr. Twomey would not say something so appallingly ignorant and I think that will turn out to be true. Twomey is familiar with the domain business and I had a front row seat when he delivered a solid keynote address at the 2006 Domain Roundtable conference in Seattle.