Cyber Squatters

So I was flipping through the Star Tribune today and I learned something pertaining to blogs. There are people out there who start a blog or a website with a common word in the title; they then site (squat) on that site until someone else comes along who wanted to use that URL. The squatter then offers to sell the URL for a rediculous amount of money. Maybe some of you have heard of this already and I know I have accidently come across them by typing in the wrong URL for a similar site.

I found myself turned off by the exploitation powers some people try to use. Ideally the Internet is a free medium to share one's views, information, and all sort of other things. Taking a domain name and not doing anything with it, seems to me like taking the title for a book without ever writing it. I know everyone has their own idea for how to make a buck, even cyber squatters I suppose.