Counterfeit is defined as a violation of intellectual property rights. It is an illegal activity which consists in deceiving consumers by creating the illusion that they are purchasing original products, whereas they are in reality buying copies. The aim of counterfeiters is to benefit from the usurped brand’s notoriety, its image and its prior investment.

A dangerous international trade

Counterfeiting is considered to be a criminal activity, which allows for financing dangerous organizations such as banditry, mafia networks and even certain terrorist groups. It is a worldwide problem and all states need to combat this illegal phenomenon.

Many counterfeit products are produced in South-East Asia (China, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea… (more…)

Position squatting is just one on a long list of cybersquatting practices. What is it? It’s buying the name of a known brand as keywords in order to optimize one’s own visibility. The goal is to attract visitors to one’s own website by profiting from this brand’s visibility. The Cobrason vs. Google case is an excellent example of the problems this practice can create.

Cobrason vs. Google, Home Ciné Solutions

The lawsuit sparked a number of reactions regarding the estimation of economic damage caused. (more…)

Since 1989, after a limited access afforded only to certain Mexican institutions, Mexico’s main extension, .MX, closed itself to new registrations. Now, 20 years later, .MX is once again open for registration.

The NIC México (Network Information Center México) register, in charge of administering the .MX (ccTLD / country code Top Level Domain) codes, is looking to develop its extension.

Registration will open in March 2009. It will be divided into stages (called Sunrise) and will first give preference to domain name owners in one of the five Mexican sub-extensions (.COM.MX, .GOB.MX, .EDU.MX, .ORG.MX, and .NET.MX). This month, the NIC MX has unveiled the different domain name registration stages. (more…)

Sales terms and conditions are something that any e-commerce company must never overlook. It is strongly recommended that companies ensure that their terms and conditions comply with the law and are never a copy and pasted version of a competitor’s own sales terms and conditions.

Believe me, I wouldn’t offer that piece of advice if it weren’t necessary—there have been cases of terms and conditions plagiarism. Case in point: Kalypso, a French website that specializes in selling children’s clothing, was found guilty of copying the sales terms and conditions of its competitor vente-privée.com and pasting them onto its website. (more…)

.com, .eu, .mobi, .name, .asia, .kid, .nyc, .berlin, .bzh, .quebec, .xxx, .geo, .mail… the domain name industry seems to have an endless imagination when it comes to thinking of new extensions. The most recent extension that is being talked about is the .tel extension. The buzz .tel is creating comes as no surprise as this extension is unlike any of its counterparts…

A quick explanation of.tel

Up until now, the purpose of domain names had been to designate Internet-connected computers (hosts) in order to access content (resources) such as websites, FTP files, e-mail, etc. In this context, the extension helped categorize the type of available content: .com for commercial websites, .mobi for mobile-phone adapted content, .co.uk for UK websites, .co.jp for Japanese websites, .org for all kinds of organizations, etc. (more…)

Google’s newest innovative initiative allows the creation and broadcast of TV ads: Google TV Ads.

There is one requirement the advertiser must respect: in order to access Google TV Ads, an advertiser must have a Google AdWords account. With Google TV Ads, the advertiser can create a commercial step-by-step and can even ask for help from qualified ad creation specialists. Statistics are provided for each and every advertisement in order to facilitate campaign and ROI management. (more…)

According to intellectual property law, which deals with protecting authors’ rights, before a work is reproduced on a website, the website should obtain permission from the author of the work or risk being taken to court. This is true no matter the format of the work—written, drawn, etc.

Television vs. web

In November 2008, the website Wizzgo (an online video broadcasting site) shut down its online service and was ordered by the Paris regional court to pay €440,000 in damages to the French M6 and W9 TV stations. Why? For having copied, reproduced, and made programs from these two channels available online without the TV stations’ consent. (more…)

Many websites use online marketing campaigns in order to develop visibility and boost traffic. The question is: How effective are these online campaigns? Additionally, are sponsored links or natural links more effective? A Xiti Monitor study has analyzed the impact of online marketing campaigns on website traffic.

On average, 80% of a website’s traffic is generated naturally (direct access, search engines, reference links, or e-mail links). The remaining 20% come from marketing campaigns (sponsored links, e-mail campaigns, advertising, and affiliation). (more…)

For website indexing, a search engine needs intrasite links in order to navigate from page to page. This is called crawling.
This stage is very tedious and demands a lot of resources from search engine crawlers.

Sitemap protocol was created in order to ensure that information could be updated faster. Sitemap protocol is a recognized standard for the 3 biggest search engines: Google, Yahoo!, and Live Search.

A sitemap is not the traditional map of a website that one finds at nearly all HTML format websites. The sitemap protocol for search engines is done in an XML file that lists all of a site’s URLs. A specific format must be respected. (more…)

US copyright law is very strict and the past 20 years have seen a good number of copyright lawsuits, several dozen in the 1990s alone. A recent copyright lawsuit has particularly caught our attention, however: GateHouse Media vs. The New York Times.

What is copyright?

The sole right reserved for an author or his/her representative to reproduce, publish, or sell his/her literary, artistic, or scientific work during a specified number of years. You can often tell that a work is protected by copyright law thanks to the frequently used © symbol following the year of the first publication and the name of the holder of the copyright. The symbol  invokes rights against third parties and is recommended to discourage third parties from illegally using a work. (more…)