According to reports, the announcement that David Beckham is moving to US Major League Soccer, the 'Los Angeles Galaxy Soccer team' has kick-started the biggest cyber-squatting rage ever seen.

It's caused a mad rush among cyber-squatters for easy money. They've been rushing to buy every possible Internet domain name with the combination of the words, "Beckham" and "Galaxy" within minutes of the announcement being made. From day one, opportunists have been fighting for the domain name rights to every single permutation of the Beckham brand crossed with LA Galaxy.

These cyber-squatters have been buying domain names at cheaper rates, and later, cashing in on these domains by selling them off to the person or company connected with the names at a much higher price.
The cyber-squatters have also been using these domain names as Google-style pay-per-click keyword adverts to make money. Apparently, the domain names misguide Internet surfers by pointing to Web sites that feature pay-per-click adverts.

Some of the domain names to get hitched within minutes of the announcement are: www.lagalaxy.co.uk, www.lagalaxy.info, www.lagalaxy.org, www.davidbeckhamgalaxy.com, www.beckhamgalaxy.com, www.beckhamgalaxy.info, and www.beckhamgalaxy.net.

Industry experts observe this is one of the fastest cyber-squatting ever seen. They rationalize that because David Beckham is a major international brand, many people saw this as an excellent opportunity to cash in on.

The experts are also of the view that while a domain name is easy to secure in the first place, retrieving it from a cybersquatter is very difficult. The potential damage a malicious registration can do to a celebrity brand is untold.