Digital domain name registrar Speednames is warning financial companies of the dangers of cybersquatting and the importance of protecting their brands on the Internet.
Research undertaken by Speednames indicates that the financial and manufacturing sectors are at particular risk of cybersquatting through failing to register their key brand domain names on the Internet. While the .com address has been sewn up, companies are still failing to protect their e-brands among country code domains especially in Central Europe.
The study of the top companies in each sector of the Fortune 500 shows the financial sector only has a 30% registration rate for company names within all top-level domains.
Mogens Nielsen, CEO of Speednames, says e-branding is too important an issue to ignore. "Cybersquatting is a threat to all companies and should be taken very seriously by top management. Protection of company and brand names are not only an issue for IT departments and product managers. It must have top priority in every company."
He advises companies to register their main corporate domain names along with as many key brands and trade marked names within top level .com, .net and .org addresses as well as in all relevant country-codes.