Squatbranding, Tradesquatting

Wake Up ... if you can !

People don't complain enough about corporatization, when bandits in business suits encroach on our lives through squat brands:


squatbranding - to incorporate in generic space; to acquire or arrogate a common word or phrase as a corporate brand.

Shortcut-seeking scum too often plonk themselves down in our common space & claim permanence, saying in essence "Fuck you - now move around me!"

Squatbranded regular words are shamelessly hijacked from common history and our general dictionaries:
amazon
apple
total
mars
delta 
caterpillar
intel
orange
target
vail
carrefour ("crossroad")
shell
metro
continental
oracle

They're our words first, not their recent squat brand. The wider community has long prior use of those words - but shortcut-seeking scum try shoving us aside with ® trademark appropriation. We need to push back. Imagine brands such as apple™ paying us more to squat in our common space. We must visualize them sporting the SQUATBRAND mark (Not a call to deface their operations!)

Those starting a new venture should coin new terms, as did the creators of Localversity or Google.

Ventures that chose to brand on a novel descriptive phrase seem rather OK: Kentucky Fried Chicken, Japan Railways, Smell Museum

Can't complain too much of firms trading on a family name: McDonalds, Honda, DuPont

But we shouldn't need to tiptoe around squatbranded regular words.

Corrupt officials and smutty nobility, if they could, would sell our kids for meat, renting Our Heritage cheaply to the first shyster paying registration. Too often it's a Squatbrand