The tremendous "lazy person's way of making tons of money" vibe that has attached itself in mainstream media discourse regarding anything domains ever since Ult sold his portfolio for gazzilions (and even before that), combined with the lack of true government oversight, the speedy ways that online commerce work, and the entrance of new big money into the already crowded space, created an atmosphere whereby every crooked way of taking an advantage for yourself become acceptable, and indeed normal.
Aptly named outlets like Name Intelligence (who exist only to play with and use and abuse, for their own commercial gains, other people's electronic footprints) became the latest frothy-at-the-mouth evangelists spreading the mantra among the "connected few" that Data Mining (is back with vengeance) and is worth more than it's weight in gold. Under the guiding principle of "monkey do what monkey see" and in their biggest mortal fear of "leaving money on the table" pretty soon almost every registrar, and many of their customers, started minding other people's business. As a result of that, nowadays, we have registrars who are actually actively working against the best interest of their customers and who are anything but registrars, registrars who are stealing domains for themselves even before they even expire, registrars who are pimping their own customer's data to paying third parties, semi-automated and automated cybersquatters who are stealing other people's ideas because they are impotent to come up with their own etc.
Pure Deadwood.
