Best Practices for Protecting your Online Brand Gretchen Olive Baltimore ACC November 15, 2007
Agenda About CSC Domain Names 101 Current Cyberscape Risks to Brands Online Current Infringement Trends Best Practices
Key Facts about CSC Since 1899 CSC has lead our industry in both service and technology while representing the largest companies in the world and managing the world s largest corporate and financial transactions. CSC is headquartered in Wilmington DE, with service centers strategically located around the world. CSC is able to offer services in every US state and county as well as internationally. More Fortune 500 companies have switched to CSC in the last two years than to any other corporate services company. 65 in the past 30 months. CSC handles and manages secured lending transactions for the world s largest financial organizations. CSC works on behalf of every one of the top 40 M&A law firms as ranked by the National Law Journal. CSC is the worldwide leader in corporate identity protection for the Global 2000. Providing the only integrated offering to deliver trademarks, domain names and brand monitoring.
CSC Our Unique Position CSC is a service company dedicated to reducing risks and costs for our clients by providing: 1) Corporate Identity Protection Services; 2) Corporate Governance & Compliance Services; 3) Litigation & Matter Management Services; and 4) Deal & Transaction Support Services Our Services are fully integrated with our Monitoring, Workflow, Compliance & Reporting Solutions.
Domain Names 101 - Terminology gtlds: Generic top-level domains No eligibility requirements Examples:.com,.net,.org,.info,.biz cctlds: Country code top-level domains (240+) Requirements determined by jurisdiction Examples:.co.uk,.de,.jp,.ca,.cn stlds: Sponsored top-level domains Industry specific; unique eligibility requirements Examples:.aero,.edu,.law.pro, IDNs: Internationalized Domain Names Domain names in native language characters Examples: músicagratis.com, Даль.com, 国 际 域 名. 中 国 Alternative domains: specific to a geographic location Examples:.us.com,.br.com, cn.com
Domains 101 Parties Involved in Domain Registration Registry: A database associating DNS information with some person, legal entity, operational entity, or other referent. The registry operator keeps the master database and also generates the "zone file" which allows computers to route Internet traffic to and from top-level domains anywhere in the world. Internet users don't interact directly with the registry operator. Registrar: An entity with a direct contractual relationship with, and special access to, a registry, that inserts records on behalf of others. Registrant/Owner/Holder/Licensee: The registrant is the owner of a domain name. The owner may be an individual or an organization to which a specific domain name is registered. When a registrant registers a domain name and enters a contractual agreement
Domains 101 - ICANN ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers They are the accrediting and coordinating agency that regulates and governs the domain name space Composed of task forces, committees and constituencies Examples: WHOIS Task Force, Business Users Constituency, IP Constituency Consensus Policy organization; holds open, public meetings Only involved in Compliance Enforcement NOT Infringement Enforcement Website: www.icann.org
Domains 101 - WHOIS WHOIS is the public record of domain name registrations Allows the public to know who is behind the registration Heated public policy debate on WHOIS to balance many interests (i.e., privacy, IP, consumer protection, business) Each registrar is responsible for maintaining the authoritative WHOIS for the domain names they sponsor this is shared with each registry operator In the WHOIS you can find: Registrant, administrative, technical & billing contacts Name servers Registration & expiration dates Registrar of record Domain status (e.g. REGISTRAR-LOCK )
Current Cyberscape In 2006, more than 120 million domains had been registered worldwide Represents a 32% increase in registered domains over 2005 On average over 10 million domains registered every quarter in 2006 65 million.com &.net domain names Live websites: 63% Parked websites: 23% No websites: 14% Country Code extensions (cctlds) grew by 31% to 44 million domains worldwide Germany (.de): 11 million China (.cn): 6 million United Kingdom (.uk): 6 million Europe (.eu): 2.5 million
Domain Name Values In 2006, 18,000 domain names were resold for $110 million (Zetetic) Average domain resale price grew by 13 percent to $5,582 in 2006 Sample domain resale prices: Diamond.com - $7.5 million Vodka.com - $3.0 million Cameras.com - $1.5 million CreditCards.net - $120,000 SantaClause.info - $15,000
Internet Use/Penetration Growing The Internet has changed the way people get information, make decisions and transact business 1.25 billion Internet Users worldwide (has grown 245% since 2000) Estimated Quarterly U.S. Retail E-commerce Sales as a Percent of Total Quarterly Retail Sales:4th Quarter 1999 2nd Quarter 2007
CSC Infringement Research Analyzed 100k domain name across 47 Top Global Brands across 24 industry sectors Major Findings: 72% of brand names registered were owned by 3rd parties 89.45% of domains registered by 3rd parties were made up of either an exact match or a term either on the right or left hand side of the brand (for example wwwbrand or brandonline ) 76% of 3rd party domain names had an active web site compared to 53% of domain names owned by brand owners 34% of 3rd party owned domain names were being used for pay-per-click activities 51% of 3rd party domain names were under the.com extension
Where are 3 rd Party Registrants of Top Brands investing? Global regions represents the gtld top level extensions (e.g..com,.net,.info etc) Gtlds are significantly favored by 3 rd Party Registrants of Top Brands Middle East Africa Asia-Pac Americas 62 76 887 1103 Europe 6063 Global 21352 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000
Infringers use brand names to drive pay-per per-click (PPC) traffic 90% of infringer registrations were made up of either: left or right hand term + brand Top 10 left hand terms Top 10 right hand terms left txt Count of brand www 27 the 23 my 19 e 18 1 16 buy 14 ww 12 a 11 shop 11 wwwl 11 wwwbrand BRANDs mybrand BRANDstore right txt Count of brand online 25 s 23 usa 20 sucks 19 club 17 store 17 com 17 shop 16 mobile 16 e 16
Popular industries for pay-per per-click sites 6.2% 5.3% 5.3% 4.4% 4.2% 7.7% 3.2% 3.0% 1.8% 10.5% 5.4% 20.3% 22.6% 1.4% 1.2% 0.7% 0.3% 0.1% 1.7% Telecom Telecoms Equipment Computer Software Automotive Consumer Electronics Leisure Beverages Banking/Financial Services Restaurants Luxury Tobacco Food Computer Hardware Transport Alcohol Telecom Retail Restaurants Energy
Most prolific infringers Registrant Total # of Brands Domains by Proxy, Inc. 1677 27 Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc 180 27 Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc. 320 26 Moniker Privacy Services 205 21 1&1 Internet, Inc. 282 20 Contactprivacy.com 133 18 1&1 Internet AG 136 16 WhoisGuard 90 16 Private Registration 44 16 HYRO FZ-LLC 77 15 NOLDC, Inc 66 14 Spiral Matrix 64 14 paperboy and co. 29 14 Top 20 infringers account for 12% of infringement 70% of top infringers have had successful cases filed against them at WIPO & NAF
What Does the Research Tell Us? 3rd party domain name registration market is based on a sophisticated business model. Key insights include: 3rd party registrants mimic common user search terms to increase the likelihood of diverting traffic. 3rd party registrants are registering names as revenue generators. Brand owners should Infringers register in extensions that provide the highest and quickest return for their investment. These extensions are defined as high risk areas for brand owners.
Core issue today vs. tomorrow costs $5000 Real Costs: Filing fees Legal costs Purchase costs $50 Today Registration Cost Tomorrow Dispute Resolution Cost Intangible Costs: Brand dilution Customer dissatisfaction
Addressing infringement challenges 4 step process 1 2 For each brand, determine important domain strings Internet keyword usage data Company policy towards negative terms Brand strategy For each extension, determine risk of infringement For each domain string, trade-off risk and budget and determine level of acceptable risk 3 4 Capture this in a written policy and take proactive action Acquire domains with unacceptable risk Monitor domains with marginal risk Ignore domains with acceptable risk
For more information CSC can assist you in developing a domain strategy and policy. For more information, please contact Neal Smith, CSC Corporate Consultant at 800.927.9801 x3490 or nsmith@cscinfo.com For more information about CSC and our Corporate Identity Protection Services, please visit http://www.cscglobal.com or http://www.cscprotectsbrands.com