Johnson & Johnson buys damaging Domain Names

Trying to stave off additional damage, Johnson & Johnson is looking to preempt negative online attention for its birth control patch, Ortho Evra, and has been buying the rights to negative domain names. Some of those include very morbid-sounding e-ddresses such as Deathbypatch.com and Orthoevrakills.com.

J&J, via its Ortho McNeil Pharmaceuticals unit, makes and markets may of top-selling brands of birth control pills, including Ortho-Cyclen, Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, and Ortho-Novum. Its Ortho Evra birth control patch however, which came on the market in the U.S. in 2002, is facing consumer lawsuits due to blood clots and strokes.

The brand, via a warning from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in November 2005, does carry a sterner warning of blood clot risk. While all birth control pills (and many other medications containing estrogen-based hormones) carry a risk of blood clots and other complications, the risks are larger with the birth control patch, as women are exposed to higher level of hormones versus oral medications.

While none of the domain names purchased and registered by J&J were in use, it’s quite possible that they would have eventually–maybe sooner rather than later, likely by litigators who have become quick to pounce on pharmaceutical companies.

“It’s really a best practice move,” says Larry Mickelberg, senior vice president/Marketing of Medical Broadcasting Co., an interactive pharmaceutical agency which just yesterday announced a partnership with Digitas to form Digitas Health.

J&J’s preemptive damage control may in part come from learning what not to do by watching Merck’s experience with Vioxx, its arthritis drug which is now off the market. That situation prompted Web sites with names like Vioxxlitigation.com, Vioxxlawyers.com and others also referenced by medical malpractice attorneys in TV spot ads. “Vioxx has definitely changed the rules for drug companies,” says Mickelberg.

A study from February 2006 showed that blood clot risk was doubled for women using the birth control patch versus oral contraceptives. In addition, women who use the patch are exposed to 60% more hormones than those who take birth control pills.

The appeal for many women who use the patch though, is convenience–a benefit that is played up in Ortho Evra’s direct to consumer print and TV ads–as well as lowering the risk of an unwanted pregnancy in the event one forgets to take the pill.

What’s In A Name? If It’s Tribeca, A lot

The humble little Tribeca Film Festival kicked off last night, but the behind the scenes action started long ago. Back in 1995, Tribeca resident Chuck Harris bought the domain name Tribeca.net, 11 years later, he decided to use it for a short-film festival. His group, the Tribeca Network, applied for all the appropriate trademarks, as groups do in this day and age, and his low-budget operation was officially launched, allowing users to post video and other multimedia for registered visitors to view and vote on. But somewhere in between ’95 and 2007, the Tribeca Film Festival was born (official birth year was 2002), and seven trademarks registrations were secured, including the “Tribeca” name. The climax came when the latter groups sent the former a cease-and-desist letter for trademark infringement at the end of 2006. A federal lawsuit was filed in late January and Harris has since countersued for harassment. To find out how it all ends, stay tuned. (Shoot, now I’ve gone and mixed film and TV references, damn it.)

Google to refuse Adult Domains in Adsense Marketing

Google will not accept any adult domains in the Adsense Advertising program as of May 31st, 2007.  The domain parking company and marketplace Sedo had already recently warned that adult domains with non-adult keywords would not display any ads.

Registering Domain Names that contain Trademarks

When someone registers a domain name that includes the name of a major trademark, it is advisable to use extreme caution if you want to prevent being involved in expensive lawsuits.

Recently, a small car repair shop in Germany found itself in the midst of a legal battle against French car giant Peugeot. To promote their car repair and tuning facility, they had decided to register the domain name Peugeot-tuning.de. Needless to say that the German branch of the French car manufacturer Peugeot didn’t waste much time suing. The court battle turned out to be very interesting…

Surprisingly, the District Court in Duesseldorf, Germany on November 30th, 2005 ended up deciding in favor of the car repair shop. Peugeot then decided to take this a take their lawsuit to the Supreme Court in Düsseldorf. The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the District Court in favor of the French car manufacturer and ordered the domain name peugeot-tuning.de to be returned to Peugeot.

The reasoning behind their decision was primarily based on the fact that peugeot-tuning.de can easily be confused by consumers as an official website run by the French manufacturer Peugeot, offering tuning services directly to the end-user.

The Supreme Court indicated that they would have decided differently if the car repair shop had registered a domain that did not start with the trademark name Peugeot.  If for example the car repair shop had registered tuning-of-Peugeot-cars.com, their decision would have been in favor of the car repair shop because that domain name can hardly be confused as originating from Peugeot itself.

It is important to consider this ruling when registering domain names that include trademarks. If it is possible for an end-user to believe that they’re dealing directly with the trademark holder that it would be wise to reconsider registering that domain.

Google looses in googles.eu case!

Spanish man registered googles.eu, used it for a web page where a search feature was available, with this disclaimer “This website does not have affiliation or relation with Google Inc. all the results are property of Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain Vew CA 94043, the USA)“. One need not be used to domain name lawsuits to know what would happen next…

But Google lost its ADR case! A .eu name is only available to European companies or individuals.* The complainant in case 4113 was Google Ireland. The holder of the Community trade mark is Google Inc. The complainant said it represented the US company.
Because the complainant did not bring any evidence that it was entitled to claim this name (such as a license), the panelist ruled that it failed to demonstrate its right on the name.

Interesting iPhone domains for sale on eBay

I am selling the following iPhone domains on eBay.

They are catchy and brandable domains.

If you are interested, please follow this link to the ebay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=012&sspagename=

STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&viewitem=&item=220105606853&rd=1&rd=1

Or got ot ebay.com and look for iphone.com domain

Cheer!

No LDN in .co.uk

London can feel like a country in its own right. Our city could stake a claim for being the global capitals of finance, media, the arts, retail, sport, fashion… the list could go on and on. So why not have our own domain name? www.good-idea.ldn?

We are all familiar with web addresses, and how the way they end is a signifier of where that business, organisation or individual comes from. For example, www.bbc.co.uk tells you that the BBC is British (admittedly, its full name also gives you a fairly good idea.)

This is called the country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) and is the final part of any web address used by a country. Each country has its own, Japan’s is .jp, Australia’s is .au, France’s is .fr and so on.

So what about London getting its own Top Level Domain name, ‘.ldn’? As the global city par excellence, the idea surely merits serious consideration. After all, you do not need to be British to call yourself a fully-fledged Londoner, so using ‘.co.uk’, may not have the same appeal that ‘.ldn’ could have.

Last year, the European Union got its own domain name, ‘.eu’, and has since received more than 2.5 million registrations making it one of the fastest growing domain names in the history of the World Wide Web. It has proved especially useful for organisations and companies with pan-European interests. And, of course, the European Union’s website is www.europa.eu.London is a great city and fabulous ‘brand’ in its own right, so why shouldn’t we have our own domain name? Would it only widen the divide between London and the rest of England? Do you think things could get silly, with every street in the country wanting its own domain name?

Amazon may offer DRM-free music from major labels

Amazon seems set to open a mainstream online music store as early as next month, and aims to follow the new EMI/Apple model of offering tracks unencumbered with DRM.

The company already sells music from a number of independent labels, but has reportedly approached the majors with a proposal to offer unprotected MP3 tracks from their catalogues.

EMI has already indicated a willingness to provide unprotected tracks in any format a retailer cares to sell, so it would be surprising if a EMI/Amazon deal wasn’t imminent.

One card Amazon could play is going along with the labels’ desire for variable prices (eg, selling new tracks at higher prices than older material), something Apple has so far opposed.
The absence of DRM makes it easier for people to use the same purchased music on their computers, players such as iPods and Zunes, and mobile phones. The iTunes Store has a market share of around 80 percent, making it an attractive target for competitors, especially one that’s done as well in online retail as Amazon.

Blu-ray outselling HD DVD? Arguments rage

The arguments continue to rage as to whether Blu-ray is winning the high definition video format war, with new retail figures showing that Blu-ray outsold HD DVD by more than two to one for the first quarter of 2007.

According to a report in Home Media Magazine, Blu-ray not only grabbed 70% of the sales in the March quarter but the Sony developed format actually increased its market share to nearly 75% in the month of March.

While there is still much contention as to which high definition format will prevail, if the data is correct, then it appears that Blu-ray is well on its way to becoming the format of choice.

As the Home Media article points out, despite the fact that Blu-ray was two months later to market than HD DVD, it has now taken a clear lead in number of discs sold. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that that Blu-ray is outselling HD DVD on titles released in both formats.

Blu-ray would also appear to have the advantage in backing from the major movie studios, with Disney, Sony and Fox not bothering to release titles in HD DVD, while Universal continues to snub Blu-ray in favor of HD DVD. However, with Blu-ray outselling or at least matching HD DVD sales, it is open to question whether Universal can afford to maintain that stance.

There is an argument that Blu-ray sales are being somehow artificially inflated by sales of the new Sony games console PlayStation 3, which incorporates a Blu-ray player. While there is no doubt that PS3 sales are helping to get Blu-ray players into the homes of consumers, the Home Media data focuses on sales of movie titles not players. If the data is correct, then HD DVD could be on the ropes. The coming quarter could reveal much about whether the format war is coming to an end or continues to rage.

What is a Domain Name Worth to an End User?

A couple weeks ago I more than quadrupled my money on a domain name sale. I purchased the domain less than a year ago at a reseller market. I used a broker to market the domain to companies that sold the related product, and he brought in a nice five-figure sale. (I’m not disclosing the domain nor the actual sales price for confidentiality reasons.)This domain didn’t get much traffic. Someone who values domains based on multiples of pay-per-click revenue wouldn’t have even plunked down the cash I paid for the domain, let alone four times that much. But I saw something in the domain when I stumbled across the listing many months ago:

1. The domain name is the title of an entire software category dominated by large companies such as Sun (NASDAQ: SUNW) and Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL).

2. Although type-in traffic may be low, the term receives 5,000-10,000 searches per month.

3. Advertisers are paying $5-$10 per click for this term.

I bought the domain and watched as a few visitors hit the domain each day. It never amounted to much revenue. But an end user values a domain differently from a domain reseller. Here’s how I figure the end user viewed the value:

1. Assume the domain gets only two visits a day. If we’re paying $7 per click that’s worth about $14 to us per day. Granted, a type-in may not be as valuable as someone who clicks on our ad amongst many others, but the value is reasonably correlated. That makes the domain worth $5,110 per year in click value alone.

2. We’re battling large companies with brand recognition in this space. When someone types in this term at Google they are more likely to click on Sun’s ad than ours. That means we also have to pay more per click to get higher in the rankings. But if our domain name is the exact term that the user searches for, we can expect a higher click through rate and a better ranking. We’re currently getting a 5% click through rate for about 15 clicks per day at $7 each. By owning this category-defining domain, we can get a 10% click through rate for only $4 per click. Instead of $105 a day for 15 leads we can get 30 leads for only $120.

The company that bought this domain was smart and knew what it was doing. Other companies may figure out the slick move this company made when suddenly their Google ads are lower on the page.

“Who is this new competitor?” they’ll ask.

But it’s not a new competitor. It’s just a smarter competitor.