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Chanel’s Message On Fakes: We Take It Seriously & So Should You

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Chanel’s warning to counterfeiters: "we are watching and we are taking action." That’s the literal message you will see when visiting around 40 websites that used to sell counterfeit goods (such as mychanelshop.com) that now redirect to the Chanel-owned website chanelreplica.com. These domains were transferred to Chanel as a result ...

e-Book Piracy: The Next Big Threat?

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

According to a CNN article, in less than 24 hours following the September 2009 release of Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel The Lost Symbol, pirated versions were discovered on file sharing sites, such as RapidShare and BitTorrent. Within days, the book had been illegally downloaded more than 100,000 times. As of ...

IDN ccTLDs Appear on CNN

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Last week, ICANN’s Tina Dam appeared on CNN’s, “Qwest Means Business” discussing the importance of IDN ccTLDs. When asked whether having non-Latin domain names might contribute to greater confusion, Tina Dam stated that she did not see any reason why non-native speakers would need to access websites in other languages. Of ...

A Sophisticated Online Counterfeit Ring

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Online fakes can be a lucrative business and difficult to crack down on, due to the ease and low-cost of setting up multiple virtual storefronts and the ability to obfuscate an operation’s identity. A federal lawsuit filed on March 1, 2010 by Polo Ralph Lauren and VF Corp. illustrates these ...

It Is There for a Reason, So Why Not Use It?

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

It seems like every week, news of yet another high-profile domain hijacking occurs. Whether it’s stolen credentials, SQL injection attacks, or even the work of disgruntled employees, the number of incidents has been on the rise.  At the beginning of last year, MarkMonitor participated in VeriSign’s beta program to test server-level ...

SEO Poisoning: A Persistent Malware Threat Targeting High-Profile Brands

Friday, October 16th, 2009

It’s bad enough that malware is virally spread via paid search and social networking links.  But now there are more accounts of it being spread via natural search links as well.  In a practice called “SEO Poisoning,” fraudsters use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to mix malware-laden search results with ...

Using Copyright Registrations To Combat Brand Abuse

Monday, July 7th, 2008

It’s well known that copyright protection is available to authors of creative works even if a registration at the U.S. copyright office has not been secured. IP practicioners also know that you can always file for a copyright registration at any time, and that statutory damages under the Copyright Act ...