Domain squatting, cybersquatting and typosquatting
Are you charged with managing a brand in the marketplace? Do you stress over protecting your brand image?
No doubt you’ve seen or been confronted with the unauthorized registration of brands or company names online.
Today the U.N.’s World Intellectual Property Organization ruled in favor of Jay Leno instead of a cybersquatter in Texas who registered the domain thejaylenoshow.com five years ago (read the story on MSN).
You’ll recall the dot-com era when everyone was infatuated with the Web and raced to secure their own piece of the action.
For existing companies, securing their own domain name became a top priority.
Today, when you name a company, instead of checking to see if the name is registered legally, you first go online to see if the domain name is available. Yes, times have changed.
People who purchase domain names with the intent to profit from the goodwill or a trademark belonging to someone else are known as cybersquatters. The practice is called cybersquatting or domain squatting.
Registering a domain that’s similarly spelled to an existing domain is known as typosquatting.
Usually these types of domains are used as referral sites with paid advertising links designed to make the owner some money.
What’s most frustrating for a brand manager is when a legitimate name they should be managing is owned by someone else, someone without the authority to operate under that name.
Isn’t it interesting how the Internet is used to circumvent authority? We’ll save that lengthy discussion for another time.
I’ve blogged about the importance of reserving your brand name(s) online before. With the advent of social media, it’s more important than ever for brand managers to monitor new platforms and ensure that they own the appropriate domain names. And those names may need to include variants of trademarked names, just for safe keeping.
Recommended Reading
Wikipedia’s entry on Cybersquatting
Social media song and video: Crazy Little Thing the Web
If you follow me on social networks, you’ve most likely seen the YouTube video I posted last week. It’s a fun social media song and music video I put together with the help of some talented friends.
The project is the result of an idea I received after presenting at the Social Media for Communicators conference in Las Vegas in March.
I wanted to do something with music that was different and would help set a fun mood for future presentations. After a bit of searching I found a tune I liked and began writing lyrics with my wife for the new social media song, Crazy Little Thing the Web.
I called on my talented music composer and arranger friend, Tyler Castleton, and was able to get a minus track put together thanks to Mark Scholl at Screaming Tigers. Then, after a couple hours at M.J. Greene Audio, a Salt Lake City recording studio, we finished the vocal track.
The biggest piece of the puzzle was the music video. In April this year I gave the closing keynote presentation at the Utah Public Relations Conference at Utah State University. There I met a public relations professor, Preston Parker, who just so happens to own a video production studio in Logan. Preston’s company, MultiMediaWise, was the greatest single contributor (besides me, of course) to making all of this work.
MultiMediaWise handled the video production from scripting to the final product — a YouTube video and DVD. They do it all, folks. And they do a great job, which you can certainly see for yourself in the Crazy Little Thing the Web music video.
Here’s What I Learned
Besides learning the procedure YouTube follows for verifying legitimate video views, I’ve been reminded that creating a different kind of product for your industry helps set you apart.
Combining knowledge and experience in a new, creative endeavor can not only demonstrate expertise but also provide a light-hearted look at business, which some have a tendency to take too seriously.
Are there creative ways you can demonstrate your expertise? Are there new digital channels you can use to educate or entertain in different ways than you’ve done before? Think about it, and let me know.
And feel free to share any comments about Crazy Little Thing the Web.
About YouTube video views
Perhaps you’ve seen through my social network channels that on June 24 I published a social media song music video on YouTube.
Just so you know right up front, I wrote the lyrics and performed in the video. Some were uncertain as to what type of music video and song they’d be viewing and listening to, and were surprised to see me in it! The project is something I came up with, with the help of several friends, as a fun, creative way of sharing what I’ve learned by engaging with others through social media.
I’ll embed the video on this blog soon, but first wanted to provide a little background by way of YouTube education.
If you’re just so curious that you want to watch the video now, you can do so on Codella Marketing’s YouTube channel.
In this post I’m sharing something I didn’t know, something that will help you be prepared for the YouTube process if you choose to use that channel in the hopes of publishing a video that eventually goes viral.
As of March 2009, YouTube enacted a new policy to curb “fake views” from automated systems. At around 200 to 400 views the counters on all videos, except for channels with more than 50,000 followers, are automatically frozen so a YouTube staffer can manually check the viewing IP addresses to confirm whether the views are legitimate.
Repeated views from a computer are okay, because people repeatedly view good videos, but not over an extended period of days. These repeated views can affect a staffer’s decision as to whether or not the views are legitimate.
This review process can take as long as a week. Meanwhile the account stays frozen without any additional video views recorded.
The good news is that the comments and video insight information remain active. The bad news is that all of the views that happen while the account is frozen are not ever counted; they do not get added to your video views at a later date. They’re simply lost.
At least you know the playing field is relatively level for those with fewer than 50,000 channel subscribers. Everyone goes through this manual review process, although there’s no guarantee how long your video will be frozen. It could only be a day. It could be as long as several days.
Many people are complaining about this new policy. It’s enough of a problem that some people are looking elsewhere to post videos to get accurate view counts.
So, if your intention is to launch a video campaign that goes viral, you should look to additional ways of measurement beyond just the number of views recorded by YouTube.
Also, it’s my understanding that if you embed your YouTube video on other sites, using code provided by YouTube, those views are also counted toward your total video views.
If you have additional insight and information about YouTube videos, please do share.
And please feel free to view and share my new social media music video called Crazy Little Thing the Web.
How Twitter accounts are hijacked
Perhaps you’re popular enough that people want to be you.
On Twitter, there’s only one level of security. Everyone knows your username because it’s in your URL. All they have to do is guess your account password and they can suddenly begin tweeting as if they are you.
This happened to the LDS Church News last week. Someone figured out their password and then changed it so the Church News could no longer access the account. They then proceeded to publish anti-Mormon tweets.
It took Twitter three days to shut down the account.
Imagine what would happen to your company or brand if this happened to you.
A word to the wise: be sure to create a good Twitter password, then protect it.
I’m included below in a KSL Channel 5 news broadcast about the incident.
Video Courtesy of KSL.com
Crazy Little Thing the Web, a social media song by Pete Codella
The past few weeks I’ve been working on a new project — a song about social media called Crazy Little Thing the Web.
It’s a fun take on all things social media, set to music and sung by me.
This has been a fun project and something I hope you’ll be interested in sharing with your friends and acquaintances.
I’ll first give a shout out to my wife, Vickey, for helping me with the lyrics and supporting me in this crazy little project.
Special thanks go to my music guru friend, Tyler Castleton, to Mark at Screaming Tigers, and to the crew at Multi Media Wise who are working on a music video as we speak. I’ll share a link to the video when it’s available.
Yours in social media,
~Pete
Pete Codella, APR is a communication consultant and digital public relations practitioner.
