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It's Time to Protect YOUR Domain!
by Chris Kilian
of Two Dollar Ads
Did you know that your domain name COULD be compromised?
Cyber squatters could be waiting to steal a bit of your
identity.
How?
They could register YourDomainName.biz, or do the same thing with YourDomainName.info.
That COULD allow John Doe to get a domain that sounds like yours, and allow him to cause confusion at best or try to steal your hard-earned traffic, business and reputation at worst.
If you intend to protect it, you need to take steps right now to STOP cyber squatters.
For years there has been a debate over whether all the "good" domains (usually meaning .com domains) have all been taken. Without adding my two cents to that debate, the result of this controversy has been the creation of new domain extensions. The extensions of .biz and .info are about to become available.
Do you want to explain to clients in the future that you are NOT those guys? "No, sir, that is NOT us. We are the .com site, not the .biz site." That could be problem.
What can you do?
What you MUST do to stake your claim, even if you do NOT intend to register an exact copy of your .com domain, is pay attention during the following time periods.
Period 1: Provide one of the authorized entities of your claim. You will include things like contact information, who should be contacted if someone wants to register your domain, the character string you are claiming (this must be an EXACT match), description of your current products/services, when you began using that domain and so on.
Critical Information
You can ONLY do Step 1 during the limited window of time allotted for filing this claim. The time to file a claim runs from NOW (May 21, 2001) until approximately July 9, 2001. After this date NO FURTHER claims may be filed.
Failure to enter your claim during that time means the registering entities will NO LONGER check to see if there is an equivalent .com, .net or .org name. They will NOT check the IP Claim Service database. Meaning, you could lose your .biz-version of your domain name.
Period 2: During this time, those entities with the power to register new .biz domains will check for exact matches in their database. When they find a match, both the applicant and the person who filed a claim in time will be notified. This allows the parties to work out a compromise, but also alerts cyber squatters that you are protected. This period ends on or about September 25, 2001.
Period 3: The .biz names begin to go live, unless the name is subject to an IP Claim. If there is a claim by you for YourDomain.biz, there will be a 30 day hold placed on going live, and you will receive all
"who is" data on the .biz applicant for YourDomain.biz.
Once there is a conflict on who "should" get any certain .biz name, the conflict will be resolved using something called "STOP procedures."
STOP stands for Start-Up Trademark Opposition Program, http://www.mullenextranet.com/stop.html
There is not enough space to discuss STOP here, but you should keep in mind for now that nothing will happen unless you file your IP claim in time.
Ready to file your claim?
Two things you should know about filing your claim.
There IS a fee for each claim you make. Every webmaster needs to determine if YourDomain.com has enough value to require a second registration as a .biz name.
Filing a claim is NOT the same as requesting your domain for yourself. You may still need to register the .biz name which would require added registration fees, hosting fees, etc.
But the time to act is NOW if you want to protect your own domain name.
You can do so here:
http://ipclaims.neulevel.com/
Simply provide the information required, and you can rest easier knowing that you are protected.
© 2001 by Chris Kilian
Chris Kilian publishes Secrets for Success ezine each week. To
subscribe, send email to secretsforsuccess@postmaster-email.com. Purchase ezine advertising with guaranteed results from his site
http://www.twodollarads.com or learn the secrets of Big Dogs by visiting
http://www.roibot.com/w.cgi?R258_bdg6
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