Overwhelmingly, businesses are failing to protect themselves by not securing their domain names as trademarks. While the numbers are moving in a positive direction, most businesses on the Internet are at risk that a trademark owner may appear and tell them to 'cease and desist' using that domain name.

The smart domain-name holders protect themselves in two ways: first, they complete a trademark search before selecting a domain name to ensure availability, and secondly, once they adopt the name, they register it as a trademark to protect themselves from business disruption, ... This way they are covered from all sides.

“There is an art to the domain name business that you either come to learn, or you don’t. It’s not about computers and science. As I’ve said before; we are all in the human behavior business, and there are few domain names in existence, just a few million across all extensions, which are good enough to provide their owner a tactical advantage when selling products and services on the Web. “

Overwhelmingly, there's probably not a lot of presence, or not as much as we'd like.

“Early on we saw the power of the Domain name in our own projects. Through direct navigation, good generic domain names generated invaluable targeted traffic to our sites. Owning the perpetual traffic reduced customer acquisition costs and provided an advertising advantage. And keyword-rich domain names brought instant credibility with consumers, business and the media alike. It was a huge strategic advantage and cost saving for our own businesses projects."

We do not see a place for them. We believe the job of securing the borders should be done by professional law enforcement.