DOMAIN PORTFOLIOS
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With big changes afoot online, now may be the perfect time to take another look at your domain name portfolio, as Stuart Fuller explains.
At some point in the not-too-distant future, ICANN will start on
the programme to
revolutionise the Internet. I had hoped to say evolution rather than revolution in that fi rst sentence, but recently the brakes have been put on the programme following concerns over the security and stability of the current Internet infrastructure, which may mean some signifi cant changes to the way things work.
T ese changes will not be an evolution of what we have today, so my use of the red fl ag-waving ‘r’ word is deliberate. T is further delay has not surprised the many brand holders who have experienced a number of false dawns in what is expected to be the biggest ever change to the way we use the Internet.
T e current delays do, however, give brand
holders an opportunity to catch their breath and assess their domain name strategies before we embark on a programme that may see up to 20 new domain name suffi xes introduced every
www.worldipreview.com
week over the next three years. If monitoring the use and misuse of vital digital online assets is hard today, imagine what these changes will mean for brand holders. In a recent study of IT managers in the UK, NetNames found that 60 percent of companies had no formal strategy in place for the monitoring of online brand abuse, be that simple domain cyber or typosquatting, or advanced counterfeit and piracy monitoring. T at’s a worrying statistic when the landscape is about to change so dramatically.
Domain name abuse has been a thorn in the side of brand holders for many years and, with up to 600 new unrestricted domain suffi xes soon to be launched, the need to have a formal approach is greater than it has ever been. Unless a brand is aware of what options are open to it today, how can it plan for tomorrow?
Nobody is expecting brand holders to rush out and register every combination of their key digital assets in all 600 open generic top-level
Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 2, Issue 3 35
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