Business owners who have tried to register domain names for their businesses may have found that those domains may have been taken up by someone else. In some of those cases, especially where it mirrors trademarked names of brands and products, they may have been registered by those who seek to profit by selling it to the brand name owners. This is called cybersquatting, also known as domain squatting.
But companies wanting to protect their trademarks can file a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – and many do. The most active cybersquatting company is tobacco giant Philip Morris, which topped the list of companies filing domain name cases – at a number of 81 cases – in 2014 (following not quite so close behind is Brazilian bank Banco Bradesco with 46 cases).
Here’s an infographic from the folks at IrishApps.org on the cybersquatting phenomenon, and some numbers behind it:
