A few days ago, a client sent me an email asking me to weigh in on what domain names her company should register to correspond with its presence in markets in the Middle East. While she was planning to register the core brand name in the relevant ccTLDs, or country code top-level domains (Brand.ae for the United Arab Emirates, Brand.co.il for Israel, etc.), her distributor in the region had advised her that local Internet users tend not to direct navigate to domains in their ccTLDs. Instead, she said that consumers typically type in the brand name followed by “ME” in .COM. So, the distributor advised, our client should register BrandME.com.

The client asked me if I agreed that this was a common practice, and if other major brands followed this naming convention. To my knowledge, it was much more common for brands to stick with ccTLD domains. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of any big brands that follow the BrandME.com practice my client had described. But it sounded interesting, so I wanted to look into it further.

I decided to take a sample of the biggest brands and see whether or not they used BrandME.com domain names. For a quick reference, I looked at the top 20 brands on Interbrand’s Best Global Brands of 2011 list.

Of those 20, I found that only four owned their BrandME.com domain names: Coca-Cola (Coca-ColaME.com, but not CocaColaME.com or CokeME.com), Google (GoogleME.com), McDonald’s (McDonaldsME.com), and Disney (DisneyME.com). Of those four, only two, McDonald’s and Disney, actually direct those domains to content. McDonaldsME.com redirects to McDonaldsArabia.com; DisneyME.com displays Disney content in English.

Of the other 16, some brands’ BrandME.com domains had been registered by third parties. Most pointed to Pay-Per-Click ads or parked pages. Others did not resolve to content. The rest of the BrandME.com domains were not currently registered.

Because the client is a cosmetics company, I checked about five other cosmetic brands’ BrandME.com domains as well. None resolved to brand content. In fact, none resolved to content at all.

So what did I end up telling the client? Basically, it won’t hurt her to make sure all her bases are covered by registering her BrandME.com domain name. But the standard practice is to stick to registering the brandname in the ccTLDs of the relevant markets. If a company has a presence in Saudi Arabia, in other words, it should go after Brand.com.sa.

For brand owners, the launch of a new generic top-level domain (gTLD) brings with it a now all-too familiar nuisance: the Sunrise period. Sunrise periods are a necessary evil for businesses: on the one hand, they provide businesses with the opportunity to protect their brand in newly launched extensions, but on the other hand, they require businesses to monitor for announcements, navigate through the steps of registering their trademarks, and pay the associated fees. For companies that hold multiple trademarks, this can be an expensive and time-consuming process. However, as the number of gTLDs is poised to expand significantly, participating in Sunrise periods will remain an important aspect of businesses’ online brand protection strategies.

Unfortunately, there is a lack of clarity among many businesses about when participating in a Sunrise period is a smart defensive move. Some registrars appear willing to take advantage of this confusion, and the “better safe than sorry” attitude that often accompanies it, with vague marketing practices. Take, for example, the so-called "Sunrise period" for the .JP.NET extension that opened on January 16. Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: .JP.NET is not a top-level domain. Rather, the registry services provider CentralNic has registered "JP" as a second-level domain in the .NET domain space. Businesses that register their trademarks in .JP.NET are actually purchasing a third-level domain on the JP.net second-level domain.

CentralNic argues rightly that the third-level registrations in the JP.net domain open up opportunities for businesses that were unable to obtain their desired domain name in the .NET gTLD or Japan's .JP country-code TLD (ccTLD). What is unsettling, however, is that .JP.NET is being marketed by registrars as the debut of another top-level domain with no reference to the fact that .JP.NET is not, in fact, a top-level domain. Rather, the .JP.NET rollout seems designed to mirror the recent, high profile launch of the .XXX gTLD with a four-phase registration process that includes Sunrise and Landrush periods along with a promotional period for .JP and .NET owners to register matching .JP.NET domains before General Availability begins. This strategy seems aimed at inciting brand owner confusion and anxiety, and, of course, drumming up sales.

The bottom line is that registrants should be told, up front, what they are actually getting by registering a .JP.NET domain. Without such an explanation, however, the burden falls upon brand owners to be informed and strategic with regard to domain name registrations. As countries increasingly open up ccTLDs to general registrations (Columbia's .CO and Montenegro's .ME are two of the most recent examples), and with the first extensions from ICANN's New gTLD Program predicted to go live in early 2013, the number of Sunrise periods is only going to increase as time goes on. Staying aware and informed will be the key to making smart decisions.  
 

Back in September, we published a Perspectives paper about a survey scam that targeted social networks: when Internet users mistyped the domain names of popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others into their browsers’ address bars, they were led to a website that was formatted similarly to the target homepage, but displayed a survey in place of the expected content. The surveys promised prizes for answering questions and – surprise, surprise – never delivered on those prizes. Instead, they stole users’ valuable personal information.

In the study, we noted that shortly before we published, Facebook had filed a lawsuit against 25 defendants over 104 different domain names, many of which we identified as hosting this survey scam. Now, according to Fusible, Google has come out on top in its own struggle against survey scammers. The search engine giant, and owner of YouTube, filed a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) complaint with the National Arbitration Forum over the domain names youtbe.com, youtub.com, youtue.com, youube.com, and yutube.com, all of which had popped up in our study as hosting the survey scam.

Recovering these domains was by no means a bad move on Google’s part, but it amounts to a drop in the bucket: in total, we had identified 81 typos of YouTube.com that had been squatted to host this scam, many of which receive extremely high volumes of traffic (by our calculations, a single domain receives over 19 million visitors annually). These five domains receive fewer than 300,000 visitor per year, accounting for only 0.72 percent of the total traffic that all the squatted Youtube.com typos in our study receive. Conversely, if Google had targeted the top five typos that receive the most visitors, it could have recovered over 90 percent of traffic, or more than 35 million annual visitors, that are exposed to these survey scams. That would have gone a long way in protecting YouTube’s users, and in turn would have stemmed a significant portion of the damage that these scams have inflicted on the YouTube brand.

But on the bright side, Google is clearly aware of the survey scam problem, and the UDRP Panelist reached a fairly open-and-shut decision. These two factors bode well for the company, should it decide to pursue more of these typosquatted domains.
 

ICM Registry, the company that administers the .XXX sponsored top-level domain (sTLD), announced this morning that it was suspending domain registrations "that appear to involve unmistakable, blatant cybersquatting." The announcement came in the wake of suspicious registrations for famous trademarked names including BusinessWeek.xxx, CNBC.xxx and WashingtonPost.xxx, among others. ICM's swift move to suspend the questionable registrations is commendable and shows that the registry is committed to protecting trademarks and enforcing its own policies.  

However, this morning's news also highlights a key pitfall of Sunrise Periods: in order to be effective, brands must participate in them. FairWinds recently reported that 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies participated in the .XXX Sunrise Period B by blocking either their many company names or names of their key brands. In our view, this high rate of involvement indicates a significant level of awareness of the .XXX Sunrise Period among businesses. Unfortunately, certain companies did not choose to participate, and had to either register their domains defensively, or deal with cybersquatting. With the Internet poised to expand with ICANN's New gTLD Program, the lessons from the .XXX Sunrise Period—and the precedent set by ICM's swift response to cybersquatting—will be worth watching.

Zut alors! According to The Guardian, identity squatting is no longer a problem that only American politicians face. It appears that French squatters have a certain savoir faire for the practice as well, and it extends all the way up to the office of Prime Minister. When users type in FrancoisFillon.fr, instead of landing on the site for French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, they are redirected to FrancoisHollande.fr, the site for presidential candidate Francois Hollande.

And what about the current French president, who is seeking reelection next May? Well, NicolasSarkozy2012.fr points to a tattoo artist's site, and Karachigate.fr (the nickname given to the scandal over a corrupt arms deal from earlier this year) redirects to the site of the Elysée Palace, the French equivalent to the U.S. White House.

But the biggest difference between the U.S. and France when it comes to identity squatting is the pénalité involved. Here, the French add a certain je ne sais quoi, to the tune of jail time and a fine. The country introduced an anti-cybersquatting law last March that goes beyond simply protecting trademarks and intellectual property. The law deems the act of stealing another person's identity "to attack their honor" punishable by up to a year in prison and a maximum fine of €15,000, or about $20,000. Sacre bleu!

In the past we've written about members of Congress and other elected officials who do not own their names as domain names. In many cases, the officials' names have been registered by opportunistic squatters and host pay-per-click ads. But every so often, an official's name is registered by a competing candidate or the opposite political party.

The latest instance of this trend targets someone who is not an elected official, but a well-known Washington figure nonetheless. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) owns the domain name JackAbramoff.com, and Abramoff is none too happy about it.

Abramoff is a former GOP lobbyist who recently spent three years in prison after pleading guilty to two separate federal cases, one involving the submission of bogus loan documents and the other involving bribery of lawmakers and Hill aides. The DCCC registered the domain JackAbramoff.com in 2006, the same year Abramoff came clean about his corrupt dealings, and points it to a site displaying the message "We didn't forget, Jack."

According to Abramoff, he tried to get the domain name back "amicably," but the DCCC refused to give it up. Now he is threatening legal action.

Abramoff could have a case if he can assert trademark rights to his name predating the registration of the domain. To qualify for a trademark, Abramoff must prove he has used his name in connection with the public offering or sale of some kind of product or service in interstate commerce. Whether or not he will be successful remains to be seen.

This just goes to show, it's worth registering your name as a domain name early. You never know when something is going to make you famous.

Remember a few months back when online retailer Overstock.com started promoting a new domain name O.co? It began by touting it as its "new shortcut," but recently launched an advertising push declaring "Overstock.com is now O.co." It even had the name of the Oakland NFL/MLB stadium, the Overstock.com Coliseum, changed to the O.Co Coliseum.

But now, according to a recent article in Advertising Age, Overstock is backing off the O.co push, and returning to Overstock.com in online ads and television ads for the holiday season.

Overstock's president Jonathan Johnson was quick to point out that the retailer is not abandoning the short domain altogether – rather, it is just "stepping back" from it temporarily. Apparently, even though consumers appeared to respond well to the O.co ads, many were confused when it came time to type the domain into their browsers. Instead of O.co, a "good portion" of consumers typed in O.com. Like all one-character .COM domains, O.com is not available for registration. So Overstock has decided it will continue its transition to O.co, just at a slower pace; for now it will use the domain for international and mobile efforts.

When .CO Internet S.A.S decided to open up .CO, the ccTLD for Colombia, to second-level registrations by any person or entity in the world in July 2010, some began claiming that it would be a good alternative to .COM. (Previously, entities had to register domains at the third level, using domains like Domain.com.co or Domain.org.co.) And yet, even with a retail giant actively promoting a .CO domain name, many U.S.-based Internet users still default to .COM.

According to Opportunity.co, more than one million .CO domain names have been registered, but that still pales in comparison to the nearly 100 million registered .COM domain names. In fact, many established companies registered their brand names in .CO as more of a defensive move to prevent cybersquatting. While some newer ventures opted to go with .CO (perhaps because the .COM version of their name was taken), it's clear from the O.co case that the ccTLD hasn't really caught on to the extent that some believed it would.

I missed the Chicago-Philadelphia football game last night, so this morning I went online to check the score. On a whim I decided to type MondayNightFootball.com into my browser bar, thinking that there was a chance it might lead me to what I was looking for.

The domain directed me to a page on ESPN's website. At the top of the page was an error message that said, "The URL you requested does not exist, but you may be interested in the content below." That content below was a list of search results for the query "NFL." Since the domain redirected to an ESPN URL, I checked out the WHOIS records and found out that ESPN does indeed own MondayNightFootball.com – or at least, ABC Sports, Inc. owns the domain, and ABC and ESPN are both owned by the Walt Disney Company.

That made sense to me, given that ESPN has been broadcasting Monday Night Football since 2006. Out of curiosity, I went over to Google and searched "Monday Night Football," The first result? ESPN's Monday Night Football page, located at espn.go.com/nfl/mnf. So if ESPN owns the domain name MondayNightFootball.com, why doesn't it redirect the domain to the section of its website devoted to Monday Night Football?

According to Compete, the domain MondayNightFootball.com gets, on average, roughly 500 unique visitors per month, and peaks at around 1,600 visitors per month during football season. Based on our own research, we have found Compete grossly underestimates traffic to some domains, so this number could actually be higher. But what this means is, with a simple redirect, ESPN could drive, at minumim, an extra 500 to 1,600 people to its Monday Night Football page without having to create any new content at all.

I also checked on MNF.com, the abbreviation that ESPN uses both in its URL and in its television broadcasts. ESPN does not own that domain, which currently points to a pay-per-click site. During the off-season, MNF.com only gets around 200 unique visitors per month, but during the fall, traffic jumps to over 3,000 visitors per month. Many Internet users favor shorter domains (think AE.com for American Eagle Outfitters or UA.com for Under Armour), so it's not surprising that football fans type in MNF.com about twice as much as MondayNightFootball.com during football season.

If ESPN were to acquire MNF.com and redirect both that domain and MondayNightFootball.com to its existing Monday Night Football page, it could boost its traffic by approximately 4,000 monthly visitors (at least) during the NFL season. While this number is tiny compared to the total MNF audience, it represents a boost that ESPN could gain without any extra promotion or content development. The traffic figures also show that these domains are likely to be highly intuitive to a broader audience as well. This dual redirection strategy would allow the sports media leader to build up its MNF brand without losing the folks who prefer to type in MondayNightFootball.com.

And that means Monday Night Football's next big winner could be ESPN itself.

ICM Registry, the company administering the .XXX top-level domain, has announced that it received 78,938 applications during the Sunrise B Period, which ended on Monday, October 31st. During the Sunrise B Period, trademark holders from outside the adult entertainment industry had the opportunity to preemptively register their trademarks in order to block them from being registered as .XXX domains. (Sunrise A gave trademark owners within the adult industry the opportunity to register domains before ICM opens the .XXX floodgates to the general public.) Given the overwhelming response, ICM and its IP Rights validation company will likely be processing the trademarks and applications through the end of November. As such, the results of the Sunrise B period will not be available until early December.
 
Before .XXX, the most recent big Sunrise rush occurred during the launch of .ASIA in 2008, when trademark owners filed just over 30,000 registrations. With over double that number of applications filed, the .XXX Sunrise B registrations dwarf those of .ASIA and highlight how seriously brand owners view the .XXX space as a potential source of damaging trademark infringement and brand dilution.
 

Last summer, FairWinds published a whitepaper on the cost of typosquatted domains for the 250 most popular websites. Through our calculations, we discovered that typosquatted domains cost those websites, in total, millions of dollars per year due to unnecessary advertising costs, lost sales, and poor user experiences.

Yesterday, Bloomberg Businessweek ran a story by Tom McNichol detailing the threat the typosquatting poses for companies. McNichol cited our study, "The Cost of Typosquatting," in that article to illustrate how pervasive and damaging the problem is. It's a great article that really gets at the heart of the problem, so we recommend giving it a read. You can also check out our most recent typosquatting study, which identified a link between social media typosquatting and online survey scams.