Domain names - use and abuse

Domain names have considerable commercial value. Consequently the abuse of well established domains is a common way of generating revenue.

Domain name abuse has expanded and grown in recent years. Among the types of abuse, cyber-squatting is the most common and is the act of registering a domain name with the intention of attempting to sell it for a profit or as a means of obtaining advertising revenue as a result of web surfers mistakenly going to a bogus site.

Typosquatting is another type of abuse which is the practice of registering a domain name that is similar to that of a well known website, but for a few typographical changes. There are various motives, for example, a surfer who mistypes a popular web address is directed to a page with an ad which will generate revenue from the additional traffic to the site.

The very recent introduction of the ability to register internationalised domain names (IDNs) will only add to the potential for abuse. The ability to use characters from all 23 official languages of the EU, meaning that registrants can, for example, use Greek or Cyrillic names, is likely to lead to further issues, as certain characters closely resemble Latin characters and are likely to be abused to misdirect traffic from other websites.

IP protection is often the first thing businesses economise on but should be a serious consideration, as vital traffic can be lost, causing loss of revenue and customers who are dissatisfied or no longer persevere to find the actual site they wanted. Proving that a domain name has been acquired in bad faith is notoriously difficult to prove and can be a very grey area when trying to acquire the rights and consequently, the sooner you act, the better. Steps can be taken to protect your business and we can arrange to set up a domain name watch, to report newly registered domain names that may conflict with your own, enabling you to act quickly and take preventative action against possible infringements.

It is also possible to set up a much more comprehensive brand monitor service which not only monitors domain names that are the same as or similar to a brand name but also trawls the internet to find instances of brand infringement, whether it be someone using images from your website, use of your name in association with gambling or pornography pages or content hidden in data behind websites.

If you have any questions relating to this article or any other trade mark or brand related issue, please contact any member of our Brand Guardianship team at brandguardianship@boyesturner.com or on +44 (0)118 952 7247.

Consistent with our policy when giving comment and advice on a non-specific basis, we cannot assume legal responsibility for the
accuracy of any particular statement. In the case of specific problems we recommend that professional advice be sought.

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