The domain protection game
For Stuart Fuller, website domain names are more than just online real estate for brands. As head of brand services and commercial operations at CentralNIC Group, one of the world’s fastest-growing domain and IP companies, they also offer rich pickings for criminals.
The company is a heavyweight in the domain name industry. It sells domain names to brands and organisations, but that is only the start of its offering. The brand protection services that follow are Fuller’s expertise.
“We have every facet of the domain story within our business and we believe brand protection starts with domain names,” says Fuller, who oversees BrandShelter, at the heart of CentralNIC's brand services division, devoted to protecting brands against IP infringements and a wide variety of malicious attacks.
“There’s a natural flow from the domain name work into the brand protection work,” he adds.
BrandShelter works by first understanding a brand’s domain strategy (or helping it to create one), leading to the management of domains in relevant territories, which leads to strategies to prevent IP infringements such as cybersquatting, or fraudsters using a brand’s IP to deliver malware to unsuspecting web users.
During a global crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, brands need all the help they can get.
“Through the intelligence we have and the tools we use, we know a significant amount about a brand’s presence online. Now whether that’s their genuine presence or someone else pretending to be them, we can see a lot of that information because we can see so much of the domain name data,” explains Fuller.
