The British corporation "BBC" announced plans to abandon half of its domains: 90% of them "lead to inactive sites."

Diane Hamer, head of commercial and legal affairs at the BBC, told the WorldTrademarkReview Connect online conference that companies keep their registered domains just to keep others from getting them. This is especially true for companies like the BBC, which has both its own brand and numerous TV show brands that need to be protected. However, BBC executives realized that roughly 90% of the company's more than 20,000 domain names belonged to inactive sites.

“This is actually a waste of money because we can never sue every misuse of our brands,” Hamer points out.

The company decided to cut its domain portfolio by about 50%.

“It's a grueling process,” Hamer admits. - How do copyright holders decide what to remove and what to leave? Top-level domains are probably vital. Anything else (such as domains with hyphens or spelling errors) might be worth removing. "

A spokesman for Swiss watch brand Daniel Wellington said companies need to develop "a system of internal metrics to assess the threat of losing every domain associated with a brand."

Today, the minimum cost of renewing a domain for a year is about $10. Thus, the BBC spends a year on its domains from $200 thousand.

“My advice to anyone is to get one really good domain name, build brand awareness around that domain name, and not try to protect everything else,” Hamer concluded.

Source: habr.com