By Tresa Baldas
Law.com
July 23, 2009
It's typosquatting waiting to happen.
Trademark attorneys are warning companies about a new target for cybersquatters known as ".cm," which is the country code -- or top level domain -- for the West African nation of Cameroon. The dot-cm domain is a hot target for scammers, they say, due to "cm" being a common typographical error for "com" in the popular dot-com domain.
Attorneys say this is significant to brand owners because Internet users searching for brand owners' Web sites frequently mistype dot-com as dot-cm and wind up on a bogus site. Not only is Web traffic lost, they say, but a brand name can get diluted or tainted along the way.
"It's a trick-to-click model. They're trying to trick people into thinking they're at a legitimate site," said Enrico Schaefer, founding attorney of Traverse Legal, based in Traverse City, Mich., which specializes in Internet law and online brand protection. "Most companies do not have a clue that this cybersquatting or typosquatting is going on. But they are becoming more aware of it all the time."
To avoid falling prey to typosquatters, lawyers are urging companies to register their trademark as a dot-cm domain before squatters do. The Cameroon government's "Sunrise Period" allowing trademark owners to apply for dot-cm domain names ended on July 14, which means it's a free-for-all now. Anyone can register a brand through dot-cm, and there's little remedy as Cameroon has no published dispute policy at this time.
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