Becoming Who You Want To Be

If you own a trademark and find that someone is holding it hostage as a domain name until you pay a large sum for it, you may be the victim of cybersquatting.

Cybersquatting became popular prior to business becoming aware of the possibilities of the commercialization of the internet.

Selling or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from the goodwill of someone else’s trademark, that is cybersquatting. For the most part cybersquating is when someone buys up common domain names with the intent to later sell them to existing businesses in order to make a profit of off those businesses.

They could register YourDomainName.org, and do the same thing with YourDomainName.biz, therefore contacting you and try to sell you those names at advanced prices.

Another aspect is when they try to cause confusion by having a domain name similar to yours, driving traffic to their site and stealing your business, clients and hard earned work.

Lawsuits are an option if cybersquatters commit libel ot trademark infringement. But domain-related lawsuits can take years and cost dearly. While it is time-consuming and costly, arbitration is still a very successful mean of resolving these issues.

But, there’s nothing like prevention. It is easier and cheaper. To protect your company it is a good idea to register any and all common variants of your domain that way nobody else can get hold of them and do any damage , this is very easy to do and will not cost much.

Fill in a form that locks in authorized entities of your claim of other domain names. You can buy these names and keep them under your roof. Go through your domain name registrar, it will provide you information to include, such as contact information, who should be contacted if someone wants to register your domain.

You only have a narrow window of time to complete the authorized entry documentation. In order to ensure that you have a right to enter a claim you need to make sure that you enter it with in the allotted time frame so that the registering entities can check the relevant com, net or org name. They will not check the IP Claim Service database. Meaning, you could lose your .info or .net version of your domain name.

Opportunities for cybersquatters are rapidly diminishing, because most businesses now know that nailing down domain names is a high priority.

Don’t allow cybersquatters to intimidate you and destroy what you have worked to create online. Your domain name represents an investment that goes beyond your website. Go with your domain name registrar and get the rights and the authorization to similar or like names to your main domain name! And never allow them to expire or be otherwise compromised since that will cost you in the long run.