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Guarding Your Rights

Insuring your name from a potential domain dispute isn't easy or cheap. Since most cases involve trademark legislation, you should run a trademark search and make sure you have the right to the name you plan to register.

Teen Magazine counsel David Jacobs says one relatively inexpensive lesson he's learned is that, in addition to registering your trademark, you should register ones that are similar.

If you find someone using a name you consider an infringement, run a trademark search, then send a letter demanding the registrant stop using the domain name, says Net law specialist Goering.

If you find yourself in the opposite situation, and you receive a cease and desist letter, keep in mind that "not infrequently people threaten lawsuits but don't follow through with them, because lawsuits are expensive and the results are always uncertain," Goering says. Then look up a good intellectual property lawyer.

"We have all these informal notions about how we're entitled to control our own names," says ICANN President Michael Roberts. "If you intend to make commercial use of a name, make sure you have the legal right to establish and protect your name."

Mistakes Happen

Since the domain registration process is constantly changing and new registrars are being added, the loss of your name can happen unexpectedly. Even if your trademark is secured, you should continue to check with the registrar to make sure your information is up to date.

A recent search for the name "contact.com" gave its owner an unwelcome surprise. The name was apparently transferred to a German software company with little warning. A clerical error occurred somewhere in the registration process when a new domain entry, concat.com, was mistyped.

The automatic transfer shocked the employees of the small California-based startup, which produces an online address book.

"It was a total fluke that someone at our company checked to see who owned it," says Michael Surkan, a product marketing manager for Contact Networks. "All of our services are provided around the name. We're financed with millions of dollars that could go up in smoke."

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