Originally Posted by Village Idiot Its only illegal if you claim to be the company, if I somehow (legally) got microsoft.com, as long as I don't claim to be Microsoft I am legal.

You can still get the domain taken away from you. What Sam is trying to do (but doesn't realise) is promote cybersquatting.

Definition:

Reserving an Internet domain name for the purpose of selling it later to a company that wants to use it.

Some previous cases (some typosquatting):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8515601/

(I'll find some more later, really got to go)