Apple needs to get its domain name strategy together
Thursday, September 8th, 2005
For being an innovator in the technology market, Apple is a laggard in the domain name market.
One of the biggest domain name disputes in recent memory is over iTunes.co.uk. I won’t go into the details of this dispute, but you can read my previous posts here.
Now it seems that Apple failed to register the domain IpodNano.com before announcing the new device to the world. A message on IpodNano.com says the domain is for sale, and according to WhoIs it was registered by a New York resident just a couple days ago. It is clearly a trademark infringement and Apple would easily win a WIPO decision, but that takes time.
What sort of innovative company invents products and doesn’t secure the domain names for them before they go public? Here’s an idea for Apple: when you get more than a day into product naming discussions, register all possible domain names for the product. It will cost you a few hundred bucks. Big deal. At least you won’t embarrass yourself with your next product launch.
Related posts:
[...] ocess to register” would be very helpful for Apple. As I pointed out last week (see Apple needs to get its domain name strategy together), [...]
[...] l domain names. Have companies improved their processes to register domain names? Nope. Even tech innovators like Apple can’t figure it out [...]
[...] allenged Apple’s victory in the UK court system. Apple may have won this one, but itstill needs to get its domain name strategy together. [...]
[...] r its poor domain name practices. It neglected to register any of the VideoiPod domains. It didn’t register iPodNano.com before launching the [...]