There’s nothing more annoying and obvious than the concept of bandwagon!

As soon as it becomes the rage, everyone wants to be a part of, and soon it becomes problematic. And one such latest buzz everybody is trying hand-in is Cybersquatting.

Cybersquatting or domain squatting takes place when someone siphons away traffic, buyers, and registers from a domain that is slightly similar to the trademark or personal name. By tweaking with trademark names and brands, cybersquatters attract customers to fishy and malware sites to the sites that are hawking counterfeit goods, PPC advertising sites, all under the nose of brand holders.

If you or your family member is a victim of such Cybersquatting and your business, despite having a good web presence, remains blissfully ignorant, have a look at how you can protect it:

Keep an Eye on the Trademark:

Always keep your trademark portfolio up-to-date! A registered and up to date trademark will protect you, and you will feel safe as your brand will get listed in government registry.

As per the trademark law, the first person who has registered the trademark will be considered as the owner. This means, if your family member has used a name to market products and services, they are the legal owners of the name. Without any trademark, they won’t be able to claim if anything goes wrong.

Also, before involving legal authorities, identify whether it’s cybersquatting or just the trademark infringement. Trademark infringement is an unlawful use of a logo, symbol or particular mark of the brand; however, the cybersquatting is the violation of business right to use the name online.

Buy-Up Variation of your Domain:

Register using common variation to register the domain before someone else take it. Register smartly and use common mistypes or misspellings. Try hyphens or more than one word to make it more protected. Use singular, plural patterns like bench.com and benches.com.

Another simplest yet most effective method is to choose a top-level domain and create a page on them. Get your brand reserved on domains like .com or .org or .me domain and many more.

For added security, you can even set Google alerts or perhaps use brand mention tools for improved results.

Stay Away From Phony Sites:

Sometimes hackers and squatters create the replica of the similar domain name or perhaps copy the whole web page layout to fool people. Using this, they also steal usernames and passwords from people who are coming to their site and apply them at a real site to access data.

Although the phonic sites are hard to remove, you can avoid them.

Take Instant Actions:

If you come across that someone is trying to infringe your trademark or is cybersquatting, you should take immediate steps to protect your name.

Find the owner of the domain or site administrator and notify them that you have already registered the trademark on that domain name. Ask them to take down or pay for the violation. But if the person refuses to do any of them, you can:

• Do URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension):

If you are using the top-level domains like .shop or .mobile, then URS is one of the easiest things you can do as a trademark owner. Just claim to the registry, if the website is infringed, it will pass through the adjudication and then, will be put down. This process is more secure and easy than going court.

• Try UDRP (Unique name dispute resolution policy):

Administered by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) anyone claiming for UDRP is considered to have a good reward. The administrator will evaluate whether your domain name was registered in good or bad faith. If you win the DRSP battle, the domain will be canceled or will be transferred to you.

So, those were some of the tricks you can use to safeguard your family from cybersquatting.

Published: 2018-02-28 16:55:48