It's not just sad or inconvenient for independent websites, it could lead to identity theft. I've got my own domain name specifically to not be dependent on the whims of Google or my ISP. I control my own email domain, or so I thought. If someone can take my email domain like this, they can also it access all sorts of sensitive information.

The internet really, really needs to be more reliable than this. Losing a domain name for an unknown reason should be impossible. Also, losing a domain name by accident should be a lot harder.