Hanson owned a small Australian business Absolut Beach, which designed, manufactured and sold swimwear.
The company has now ceased trading, something Hanson said was a result of how much she has had to spend on litigation when taken to court by another company -- reported to be Sweden's state-owned producer of Absolut Vodka, Vin & Sprit -- over use of the absolut name, and domain names (which included the word absolut).
Following legal battles both in the US and UK, Hanson is now looking for a job. She believes the Australian government should look at the issue, and how companies here can be protected. "I will never have my company back, but they should go through my case and review it [to see] how to protect Australian businesses -- and that is a must."
As Hanson's situation shows, the issue of cybersquatting is not one which is restricted by geographic boundaries.
Phillip Hourigan, partner in the digital industries group at law firm Deacons, warns people to take into considerations the ramifications when choosing a name for their company.
-When you're thinking about a naming strategy think about business names, company names, trademarks -ââ,¬" extended into an international field -ââ,¬" hand-in-hand with that is domain name strategy," Hourigan advises.
-For technology companies, where there is an expectation that a domain name will be a valuable piece of intellectual property, the starting point is to determine what's available in the top level domain space," he said.
Also, with an increasing number of domains available, there are a greater number of places for companies to protect their brand.
Earlier this week domain name provider Internet Name Group (ING) announced the launch of .bz in Australia. The country domain of Carribean nation Belize, ING has been touting it in Australia as an alternative for companies which missed out on .biz names.
Mark Spektor, co-general manager at ING, believes a lot of corporates will take on .bz to protect their brand names.
.bz isn't the only country code which has been snapped up by businesses outside the country in question. Theo Hnarakis, group general manager at domain name registration company Melbourne IT, points to .tv (Tuvalu), and .cc (Cocos Islands) as another two examples.
One of the problems with country names that Hnarakis points to is that because they're a country code there are no guarantees that the government of that particular country won't change the policies governing the names' use.
Hnarakis sees it as being very confusing for consumers. He believes there should be a review of what are referred to as boutique country codes, to prevent them for being used for purposes other than what was intended. "Otherwise there will be continued proliferation of this, and cynicism will rise."
It's a global problem, said Hnarakis, although he does believe we have a lot of integrity in the .au space in Australia with little cybersquatting. "A lot of companies work very hard to build their brand integrity and do not appreciate other companies using domain names to dilute their brand's importance," he said. "It is a global problem-it's beyond Australian shores."
