Glossary of CybersquattingThis very handy glossary is taken from the Brandjacking Index by MarkMonitor Inc.
Brandjacking – To hijack a brand to deceive or divert attention; often used in abusive or fraudulent activities devised for gain at the expense of the goodwill, brand equity and customer trust of actual brand owners.
Cybersquatting – The registration of domain names containing a brand, slogan or trademark to which the registrant has no right.
Domain Kiting – The process whereby domains are registered and dropped within the five-day ICANN grace period, and then registered again for another five days. Kiting a domain lets the registrant gain the benefit of ownership without ever paying for the domain.
eCommerce Content – Websites containing a specified brand that appears in visible text, hidden text, meta tags or title in conjunction with other site content that indicates online sales are being transacted on the site.
Offensive Content – Websites containing a specified brand that appears in visible text, hidden text, meta tags or title in conjunction with pornographic, online gaming or hate content.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) – Paid placement advertising appearing on web pages. Operators of websites hosting PPC advertising derive revenue from ads that are clicked, hence the name PPC.
Phishing – Criminal use of email to divert traffic to websites in order to fraudulently acquire usernames, passwords, credit card details and other personal information. The email and websites used in these operations employ “social engineering” techniques to trick users into believing they are interacting with a business or organization that they trust.
Rock Phishing – A method of phishing first implemented by the ‘rock’ phish gang that utilizes multiple layers of redundant infrastructure to increase the difficulty of shutting down the attack. Other phishers are now using these tactics as well.
Traffic Diversion – The use of brands, slogans or trademarks located in visible text, hidden text, meta tags and title in order to manipulate search engine rankings so that the brandjacker’s site can gain a more favorable search engine placement
The above glossary is copyright 2008 MarkMonitor, the global leader in enterprise brand protection.
A good article on cybersquatting appeared in ITBusinbess.ca entitled Crushing cybersquatters – fighting those who abuse your brand online.
