Squatters take Call of Duty, GTA and Halo domain names

Some of the biggest game releases of the year have been hijacked by domain name squatters, causing confusion when people look up their favourite titles online.

Games developer Activision has seen the .com domain for its Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 registered to a blogger. Similar domains for Grand Theft Auto V, Uncharted, Halo 4 and Need for Speed have all been registered by squatters, bloggers and gaming fans.

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Web domain registration company Names.co.uk said companies big and small needed to make sure they registered domain names for their products and services, or risk losing them.

Companies and individuals can end up having to pay big bucks to get their domain names back once someone else has registered them.

Team GB Olympic stars Rebecca Addlington and Tom Daley both lost their .com domains to squatters. In the case of swimmer Rebecca Addlington, the domain www.rebeccaaddlington.com was nabbed by a squatter from China who demanded $25,000 for it.

In other instances 'abuse' of domain name registrations can lead to them being handed over to their rightful owner.

In 2005 Apple wrestled back the itunes.co.uk domain name from technology entrepreneur and journalist Benjamin Cohen. UK domain name registry Nominet ruled that Mr Cohen was taking unfair advantage of Apple's rights.