Is Your Business Blog Brand Secure?
If you’re not careful, someone else might be able to use a variation of business name, blog URL, or other identifiable phrase and have access to the benefits that your brand has built up.
A post from Eliza Feree at the Babylune blog about a (possibly accidental) mixup between two mommy blog names and URLs got me thinking about how potentially serious a problem this problem could be for business bloggers. If your business doesn’t take steps to adequately protect your online identity, then your business could be vulnerable to a legal tug-of-war should some other entity adopt a similar name, URL, or phrase.
In the case reported at Babylune, an issue arose when two bloggers (both in a similar niche) discovered that they had similar URLs and blog names (Momologue vs. Mamalogues).
The mom blog incident was notable because it came from the world of mom blogs, which usually doesn’t have such disputes. Any personal or business blogger could face the same situation if they don’t take adequate steps to protect themselves.
Consider this post from Jacqui Cheng at ars technica about the current blog/domain name conflict between Craigslist and unaffiliated Craigslist Blog.
Such cases generally fall under the scope of intellectual property infringement. However, in some cases the law has not caught up with the online world of the web. Ars technica reports that Lowes recently lost a similar legal battle.
At best, defending your good name online is bound to be time-consuming and expensive.
What can you do?
In general, preventive steps are far more effective and less expensive than defensive techniques. Many of the techniques that we’ve published for managing your reputation online can also be applied to protect your business blog’s identity.
In addition, consider registering variants of your company and blog’s name. Registering a domain name is not expensive, and when compared to a drawn-out legal battle it’s a bargain!
Consider registering the following variations:
- Your blog name with different extensions (.com, .net, .org, etc.)
- Your blog name misspelled
- Your blog name plus another word (loveblogname.com, hateblogname.com, etc.)
Has your business blog faced domain name infringement? If so, how have you dealt with it?
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2 opinions for Is Your Business Blog Brand Secure?
Dana
Apr 26, 2008 at 8:33 am
Hi Laura - I believed my brand secure because I trademarked it. You can read the full story here: http://www.mamalogues.com/2008/04/setting-it-straight.html
Thanks.
Laura Spencer
Apr 26, 2008 at 9:25 am
Hi Dana!
Thanks for the update and the link to further information.
Hopefully by reading about your experience (and it’s aftermath) and others like it, other bloggers can avoid the same situation.
As I mentioned, however, the laws are somewhat murky and inconsistent in this area at present.
It must be disheartening that you believed that you had protected your brand and you are still going through this experience.
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