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ONLINE SECURITY


Te Internet is no longer viewed as the second Wild West. In the space of a decade almost every company has moved online. Tere is no doubt that the Internet has silently but inexorably revolutionised our lives. But, as with all revolutions, freedom has come at a price. Te removal of global barriers online has opened up dangers to consumers and businesses alike.


Big brands are realising the huge potential of reaching new global markets online. Te key to this success is to follow HSBC’s example, and act locally. One size does not fit all online, so significant thought and planning needs to go into ensuring a successful launch of an online business model in a new market. Online globalisation requires content localisation, messaging, and design.


Some well-known companies have paved the way by successfully implementing a localisation strategy. Fire up your laptop today in an Internet café in Milan, Munich or Madrid and you will see a local version of the world’s most visited website: Google. Te page looks almost identical wherever you are in the world, apart from the language of the search buttons. Google automatically redirects you to google.it, .de or .es by analysing your IP address. Its mantra is to deliver the most accurate results for every search, every time, so if you want to know a train time while in Milan, you search by clicking the ‘Cerca con Google’ button and your results will be tailored to show you those most relevant to your current location.


The real benefit for global brands, however, comes when they combine on- and offline activity. The slogans ‘The Real Thing’, ‘Just Do It’ and ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ represent three of the biggest brands in the world, and Coca-Cola, Nike and McDonald’s have created integrated campaigns using this consistent messaging. Justdoit.com is as important to Nike as the Nike.com domain name.


Matching geographical markets and product sets with localised domain names and content is an essential part of any global online strategy. Country-specific domain names continue to grow at a rapid pace. Te German .de domain name now has more than 15 million registrations, making it the third most-used suffix in the world.


The way to a fast buck


Imitation may be flattery, but in the online world the well-known proverb could be changed to ‘imitation is an easy way to a fast buck’. Counterfeiting can affect any brand that produces physical goods, wherever it


trades: it is not a problem born out of the Internet. 28


“FOR AN ONLINE BRAND IT IS NO LONGER JUST A QUESTION OF REGISTERING YOUR DOMAIN NAMES IN KEY GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS, OR MONITORING POTENTIAL BRAND INFRINGEMENTS.”


by what the buyer wants to pay, and what the seller wants to offer. Consumers love a bargain, so they will oſten be willing to sacrifice quality for a better price. And every time this happens it damages the brand’s reputation.


Cybersquatting—registering domain names that look remarkably close to a brand name—is a common form of counterfeiting, and could be costing trademark holders more than $1 million per brand, per year. Counterfeiters do not even need to try to be proactive. We all make mistakes when we use a web browser on occasions, so misspellings, or ‘typosquatting’, can oſten deliver victims to corrupt sites. To the untrained eye, HBSC.com looks very similar to HSBC.com. When combined with an authentic-looking website, customers’ financial data is at risk.


According to a September 2011 report from Symantec, more than two-thirds of adults had been victims of cybercrime. And this number is set to rise. Te increasing ease of compromising mobile devices (attacks on mobiles were up 42 percent year-on-year), the willingness of users to give away personal data on social networking sites and a lack of understanding of basic PC protection, are all fuelling these numbers. Symantec estimates that there is a victim of cybercrime every 14 seconds somewhere in the world. In 2011 it was estimated to have cost the world economy $114 billion.


Forgery is a centuries-old profession, and today counterfeiting is a high growth business.


Many Western businesses have outsourced production to Asia in order to benefit


from


cheaper labour and raw materials. However, factories that


produce legitimate products


for a brand have also been known to produce counterfeit products, oſten using the same materials, labour and production techniques. Ignoring moral and legal issues, they see counterfeiting simply as a means of maximising their production


processes, providing employment and boosting the local economy.


Te spectacular rise of eBay and other marketplace sites has meant that thousands of small businesses have been able to flourish, finding customers across the world at little cost. But this is also a free market economy: the ideal environment for counterfeit goods. Tere are few barriers to entry and prices are set


Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 1, Issue 3


Facebook is listed as a multi-billion dollar NASDAQ company with more than 900 million active users—more than 20 percent of the global population. Every 60 seconds there are more than half a million updates or comments added along with more than 130,000 photos. It is hardly surprising that cybercriminals have begun targeting their approach to social media sites.


Te new face of digital crime is oſten unseen. Companies can take basic precautions to ensure that they are not part of the problem. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a vital tool for online businesses. It informs users whether a website is genuine and can help discover viruses and malware before they can do real damage. NetNames works closely with Symantec—which blocks more than 4,900 infected websites per day—to provide a range of solutions for customers of all sizes.


All the trends point to significant growth in demand for online brands and services. Similarly, we are unlikely to see any reduction in the amount of cybercriminal activity. Prevention is not the only cure in this instance. Consumers and brand owners


alike need to be educated on the


dangers. But perhaps the biggest threat is just around the corner.


www.worldipreview.com


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