Online threats to your brand: defence on the front line
It’s war out there, whether you like it or not, and the battle is being taken to you as we speak. As cyber threats try to flank your brand on all sides, don’t forget about the front line: domain names.
Choosing the right name for a company or a new product is an expensive and time-consuming process for many new companies. Some older firms have spent years, decades or generations investing in their brand equity. Defending the value of these names and brands in an ever-expanding domain name universe is paramount as more and more business is conducted online, and as more and more people find out about your company, and obtain your products and services through online means.
Online threats to your brand equity, your customers, and your business are many. Three of the most common are phishing emails, unauthorised or fake product or service offerings, and so-called ‘black hat’ search engine optimisation (SEO) spam. What do these three damaging activities have in common? The use of ‘typo’ domain names—web addresses using names that are very close to those of your company and product brands.
“THE BATTLE TO PROTECT YOUR BRAND AND IP ONLINE IS ONLY GOING TO GET MORE COMPLEX. THE FRONT LINES OF THIS BATTLE ARE AT THE DOMAIN NAME AND DNS LEVEL."
It used to be the case that customers interacted with brands either in physical bricks-and-mortar stores, or through traditional media such as newspaper, television or radio advertisements. Life moved more slowly back then, and the process of creating and buying advertising space was relatively expensive.
Today, an average person’s online attention span has dropped to a point where most studies measure it in seconds, or fractions of a second. Think about how you email, browse the web, use social media, and text message. In parallel, the costs of reaching consumers is approaching zero with the same velocity. These equations do not work in a brand’s favour.
A perpetrator who registers a domain name confusingly similar to your brand’s (the typo) can then do a number of things, including:
