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Business is stolen from successful web sites everyday. Did you know that anyone can register a variation of your website name and set up shop in about five minutes? No ownership checks or trademark searches are done at the time of registration. Since most registration services are automated, even the most obviously malicious names are approved with a click of the mouse.
Cybersquatting, the act of registering a name in bad faith, has become one of the major problems facing businesses on the Internet. Although the term "cybersquatting" was originally used to describe the act of registering another's trademarked name, the term is commonly used to describe many different forms of bad faith registrations.
In order to protect yourself, you should be aware of the following forms of cybersquatting and domain misappropriation.
• The Sneaky Competitor: One of your competitors sets up a web site using a variation of your domain name in order to lure your customers away. Since URLs can be hard to remember or deduce, your competitor may be be able to lure away both existing customers and new prospects. This can cost thousands in lost business.
• The Porn Funnel: A variation of your domain name is used to 'funnel' traffic into a pornographic web site. Operators of some adult web sites use almost any method to attract new visitors. If one of these 'porn pirates' registers a variation of your domain name, customers who mistype your URL will be transported to a pornographic web page.
• The Employee Hate Site: A disgruntled past (or present) employee reserves a variation of your company name to post company secrets or gripes. Registering domain variations cannot prevent critical sites, but it can minimize the incentive to create these sites and then reduce the damage they can cause (a critical site which is not found easily is less damaging).
• The 'Sucks' Site: Similar to the Employee Hate Site; an unhappy customer reserves YourCompanySucks.com in order to post complaints about your business. This has become a virtual internet phenomenon. In fact many savvy web users make it a habit to see if a company 'sucks' web site exists before buying a product on-line. For example, if John is about to buy a new pool table from 'coolpooltable.com', he first checks to see if 'coolpooltablesucks.com' exists and contains any negative feedback.
• The Ransom Artist: Someone reserves a variation of your company name before you can and then attempts to sell it back to you for an outrageous amount. Fear of being victimized by the above scenarios causes many companies to spend thousands to recover names that were overlooked when they initially registered their domain name.
Can this really happen? Yes, it can and does happen every day. One of the most famous examples is "The Porn Funnel" strategy applied to the White House's own website, www.whitehouse.gov. (If you're curious, just replace "gov" with "com" in the web address. If you do want to see what they did, be forewarned: it is a pornographic site!)
Is it legal? Depending on the situation, site owners may have legal recourse (e.g. trademark infringement lawsuits or arbitration). However, even when a cybersquatter is breaking the law, it can be time-consuming and expensive for a site owner to win a legal judgment, especially if the cybersquatter is located in a different country. In some circumstances, it is possible to reclaim names through domain arbitration; however this can cost thousands and can take many months. Full-blown domain-related law suits can take years and cost tens of thousands of dollars.