How can I protect my online business?

[JT388]

Hello,

I'm getting quite the push from my fathers lawyer to protect my newly born online business that is growing quite steadily. I'm getting fed with 'do this do that' daily phone calls from them, thinking they know the perfect way to protect my brand and business, but neither of them are from the digital entrepreneur world like we on here are from.

My question to you all is, how can you protect your new online business? One of the recommendations my fathers lawyer made was to purchase all of the extensions for my business (about 100+ of them), and anything similar - to lock out all competitors and thieves. However my platform developer is telling me this is a waste of time, because it'll serve no use given there is 100s of extensions out there nowadays.

IS this method a big waste of time? Should I just buy 5-10 of the key domains (Like .Co, .Com, .net) etc and just redirect them to my main domain? Or do I need to go all out and get 100+ of the most relevant ones.

--

How do you go about protecting your brand/business in the digital world?

 

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[JoeB]

It depends on your domain.

If it is something generic like MassageTables.co.uk then I would buy up in .co.uk, .uk, .com and .net (if available - and if UK is your location) to reduce copycats as you can't 'protect' usage of generics.

If it is something brandable like MasTab.com, then if someone sets up after you, selling the same/similar stuff, then you can send a cease and desist/DRS/UDRP to them.

I would never try and buy all the domain extensions as there are too many, news ones can come at any time, renewals will be ridiculous - some renewals are $xxx per year for new extensions.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Does your dad's lawyer sell online?

Sounds like he's invoicing you for anything.

 

[ZCP]

Budget a certain amount per year to IP protection. If nothing happens, buy up a few domains. If some you want are taken, wait it out and they may pop up for sale.

For Dad's lawyer, tell him you have $x per year for IP protection, how much can he do for that?

 

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[Vigilante]

When a .com becomes dominant, there's very little cyber squatting on copycat domains that goes on any more. Most people I know might grab 2-3 related domains, but no way you should go deeper than a few.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Register your brand name asap with USTPO. IMO that's more important than buying up a bunch of domains.

 

[Fox]

Occasionally I type in YouTube wrong and get directed to some spam site. If a company of that size is not doing it then neither should you. Id get the .ca, .net and .co and leave it at that.

 

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[CaptainAmerica]

Yeah, consider the source on this. Do what your IT dev team tells you, including all the digital security you can get. But domains? pppthh.. Do the most likely, and protect them.

 

[Tiger TT]

I think it's a waste of time and money.

I have a website which gets approx. 6000 unique visitors
per day. And this is a niche site.

So I'm pretty much at the top of Google search results
for most of the important keywords in my niche.

People steal my newsletters and articles.

I've been in this niche for about 8 years. I only
have the .com domain registered. And I had
no problems related to any domain extensions.

People may steal your content and that's pretty
much it in my experience.

However, if your income depends on your website,
then you probably should consider having
a website firewall.

This will protect you from getting hacked by
automated hacking attempts.

 

[Tom Falater]

When a .com becomes dominant, there's very little cyber squatting on copycat domains that goes on any more. Most people I know might grab 2-3 related domains, but no way you should go deeper than a few.

I agree with you here. With my domain I bought up just the top three : COM, NET, ORG

Make sure you show up on the top of the search engines and you're protected.

The lawyers advice is silly and I would fire him based on that bad advice alone. He doesn't know what he's' talking about. Even ebay and yahoo don't buy up hundreds of domains, where does he get his advice from. Lawyers have a way of latching on to clients and milking them of money, be careful.

Tom Falater

 

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[CJ Turner]

I wouldn't worry about shit that probably won't happen.

Proceed

 

[Evil_Jester]

Don't completely ignore your dad/lawyer so you don't piss them off. Buy a few extra domains to appease them and say you consulted with experienced digital marketers.