Issue 158 - 24th June 2004

NetNames research reveals the most popular England Football squad members on the Internet

David Beckham's status as a sporting and cultural icon is in no doubt, but he also leads the field in the online world according to research announced this week by NetNames. The England Captain now has over 111 domain names registered by fans around the world, a massive increase from the 68 registered at the time of the 2002 World Cup.

Whilst Beckham's position at the top will come as no surprise, Michael Owen is facing growing competition from Wayne Rooney for second place. The 18-year-old star, who scored twice during England's game against Switzerland last Thursday, already has ten domains registered bearing his name. The research, which was conducted using NetNames' proprietary Brand Audit software, shows that the England manager Sven Goran Eriksson has an impressive four dedicated domains.

"The iconic status of David Beckham has definitely been reinforced by these survey results, but they do highlight an important commercial message", commented Jonathan Robinson, director of business development at NetNames. "Many rising football stars have the potential to become huge brands in their own right, so they need to start protecting their online identities early on in their careers. By registering and retaining control of memorable web site addresses, rising stars like Wayne Rooney can make sure that their names do not fall into the hands of third-parties and potential domain name speculators."

Speculation over google domains

As Google lines itself up for an IPO, the rest of the world is scooping up what they hope will be big investments with Google oriented domain names. Gary Price of ResourceShelf has compiled a new list of registered domain names which include the word Google. Domains such as corruptedgoogle.com, googleisyourfriend.com and yahoogoogle.net have all been snapped up by speculators.

The full list of Google Domain Names is available here

Heavy speculation surrounding election domains

Another area of heavy domain name activity recently has been the US Election. with speculation in domains containing the names of potential candidates. Several derivitives of Bush, Kerry and other politicians names have been snapped up by members of the public. Often these sites are being offered for sale at significantly inflated prices and in other cases they are simply being used as satirical or parody websites.

The above cases of domain name speculation involving football stars, google and the US election candidates highlight the importance of online brand protection. Whilst it is impracticle in most cases to register every derivative of a brand or celebrity name, it is sensible and prudent to proactively consider some of the more common derivatives, including typos and misspellings. In addition to this, you should put in a place a process and take advantage of tools that can help you monitor any new registrations that contain your brands or keywords.

Two businessmen jailed for domain name scam

In the Brisbane District Court in Australia last week, a jury took two days to find Philip Hyde-Harris and Grant Nicholson guilty of attempting to defraud the Commonwealth during 2000.

The trial heard Hyde-Harris owned a company called Domain Names Pty Ltd, which agreed to pay about AUD$9.7 million for various domain names held by Nicholson's company Boggo Road Pty Ltd.

The Crown alleged the contract for the sale was a scam, which was designed to get $882,500 in tax refunds and there never had been a plan to actually sell the names.

Prosecutor Tony Rafter said it had been an audacious and persistent scheme, which was designed to get Hyde-Harris and Nicholson a large amount of money.

Judge O'Brien sentenced Hyde-Harris to three years' jail with an order that he be released after serving nine months. He sentenced Nicholson to 2 1/2 years' jail with an order that he be released after six months.