Domain Name Disputes occur when a party believes they have the rights to a domain name that another party has registered, usually due to a trademark. A report has just been released that states WIPO have handled 2,944 complaints in the last 12 months. This is a record high. Domain Resellers should be making their clients aware that the risk of ‘cybersquatting’ is very real. You should be encouraging your clients to purchase as many domain name extensions as they can to protect their brand.
Many cyber squatters will use ‘typo’ domains, or domain names that contain a common typing error such as googler.com, to try and capture some of the traffic that was intended for google.com. If the site that the domain name is similar to has huge amounts of traffic, such as Google does, massive amounts of traffic can head to the misspelt domain. The squatter can then monetise this traffic using advertising or ecommerce.
A partner in the Law firm that produced the report said that the reason behind this increase in disputes was:
"As online retail becomes more profitable, household name brands are taking the defence of their domain names much more seriously … They are doing all that they can to protect their revenue streams - domain names are the key to the door of online retail."
They gave the examples of Gucci, who won cases to get back control of over 100 domain names in 2012 and Swarovski, who have won 32 cases in the last 2 years. These squatted websites had been used to sell counterfeit goods or use the brand image to sell other goods. This can seriously damage the image of any brand, your client’s included!
Make sure you are informing your clients that the problem of cybersquatting is real and ever increasing. Encourage them to protect themselves by registering as many domain names as they can, as going through a legal process to recover the domain is going to cost substantially more than the original registration fee!