Cybersquatting...
March 2009
UN agency: cybersquatting on the rise. The number of cybersquatting reports rose nearly 10 percent last year, according to a United Nations agency charged with protecting intellectual property worldwide. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said on March 16 that a record-breaking 2,329 complaints of cybersquatting were filed with the agency in 2008, an 8 percent increase from 2007. Nearly half of the complaints came from U.S. organizations. Among the industries hit most by cybersquatting were biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, which accounted for 9.9 percent of the complaints to WIPO; banking and finance, 9.4 percent; Internet and IT, 8.8 percent; retail, 8.1 percent; food, beverage, and restaurants, 7.2 percent; entertainment, 6.5 percent; media and publishing, 6.3 percent; fashion, 6.0 percent; and hotels and travel, 6.0 percent. “Cybersquatting remains a serious issue for trademark holders. Supported especially by registrar and registry stakeholders, the sale and broad expansion of new top level domains in the open market, if not properly managed, will provide abundant opportunities for cybersquatters to seize old ground in new domains,” said the WIPO director general in a statement. WIPO’s report jibes with a recently released study by MarkMonitor, which examined abuse of the top 30 brands and found that most of the same ones still get spoofed online. In its Annual Brandjacking Index for 2008, MarkMonitor found 80 percent of sites it first discovered in the first quarter of 2007 abusing brands were still alive and well in 2008. The abuse ranges from using a famous brand name just to drive traffic to the misrepresented site, to infecting visitors, according to MarkMonitor.
UN agency: cybersquatting on the rise. The number of cybersquatting reports rose nearly 10 percent last year, according to a United Nations agency charged with protecting intellectual property worldwide. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said on March 16 that a record-breaking 2,329 complaints of cybersquatting were filed with the agency in 2008, an 8 percent increase from 2007. Nearly half of the complaints came from U.S. organizations. Among the industries hit most by cybersquatting were biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, which accounted for 9.9 percent of the complaints to WIPO; banking and finance, 9.4 percent; Internet and IT, 8.8 percent; retail, 8.1 percent; food, beverage, and restaurants, 7.2 percent; entertainment, 6.5 percent; media and publishing, 6.3 percent; fashion, 6.0 percent; and hotels and travel, 6.0 percent. “Cybersquatting remains a serious issue for trademark holders. Supported especially by registrar and registry stakeholders, the sale and broad expansion of new top level domains in the open market, if not properly managed, will provide abundant opportunities for cybersquatters to seize old ground in new domains,” said the WIPO director general in a statement. WIPO’s report jibes with a recently released study by MarkMonitor, which examined abuse of the top 30 brands and found that most of the same ones still get spoofed online. In its Annual Brandjacking Index for 2008, MarkMonitor found 80 percent of sites it first discovered in the first quarter of 2007 abusing brands were still alive and well in 2008. The abuse ranges from using a famous brand name just to drive traffic to the misrepresented site, to infecting visitors, according to MarkMonitor.
posted by arkietechs at 7:22 AM
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