09-25-2010, 03:46 AM
Brandon, nice of you to bring this up.
I worked for a company that specialised in protecting clients from Brandjacking for a few months, so I guess that heightened both the importance and urgency of securing ones brand online for me.
When you start a new project, you never know where it'll end up. No one can say for sure at least, so it's important to cover all possible scenarios. In the case the site is a hit, you'd want to have secured all domain extensions for example, social id's etc. For large companies with heavy budgets, it's not as big of a deal as they can easily file and win a domain back if it's a TM issue, and the same goes if you've used their company name on social media sites. The smaller not so established sites/companies get the wind knocked out of them eventually if they haven't prepared. No registrar will hear them out, or it'll take them forever to get any attention, same goes for social media sites.
When I start a new project I make an effort to secure my brands identity online, both to prevent abuse in the future, and to increase the potential of garnering more exposure.
It's also good practice to secure your OWN identity online as competitors may end up taking advantage of that. So for example, grabbing yourname.com full or otherwise, whether you're going to use it or not is always a safe investment. Controlling your brand/company's image online is key to healthy PR in the future.
I worked for a company that specialised in protecting clients from Brandjacking for a few months, so I guess that heightened both the importance and urgency of securing ones brand online for me.
When you start a new project, you never know where it'll end up. No one can say for sure at least, so it's important to cover all possible scenarios. In the case the site is a hit, you'd want to have secured all domain extensions for example, social id's etc. For large companies with heavy budgets, it's not as big of a deal as they can easily file and win a domain back if it's a TM issue, and the same goes if you've used their company name on social media sites. The smaller not so established sites/companies get the wind knocked out of them eventually if they haven't prepared. No registrar will hear them out, or it'll take them forever to get any attention, same goes for social media sites.
When I start a new project I make an effort to secure my brands identity online, both to prevent abuse in the future, and to increase the potential of garnering more exposure.
It's also good practice to secure your OWN identity online as competitors may end up taking advantage of that. So for example, grabbing yourname.com full or otherwise, whether you're going to use it or not is always a safe investment. Controlling your brand/company's image online is key to healthy PR in the future.