Your goodwill and reputation
A domain name is not merely an address. Its very nature makes it a useful and important corporate identifier - it is where a company's presence on the internet starts.
Beyond being the name under which a company sends and receives mail, like any other trade mark or trade name, it is also a symbol of the company's goodwill and reputation in the borderless, global, internet market.

Internet users tend to guess at website locations by using variations of the relevant company's name and trade marks followed by ".com". As such, the adoption of an intuitive domain name is also a valuable means for customer outreach, in particular, the registration of trade marks as domain names.

However, the exclusive scope of a trade mark registration and that of a domain name are very different. For example, a trade mark can be registered as a domain name by anyone as long as it has not been previously registered.

It is therefore very important to identify and register your important trade marks as domain names to prevent others from registering your trade marks as domain names.

Anatomy of a Domain Name
Take the domain name abc.com
The portion "abc" is usually referred to as the domain name. The .com is a Top Level Domain (TLD). There are 2 types of TLDsg

TLDs or generic TLD indicates the activity of the domain name registrant. It need not be country-specific. The name ecgm.com may be registered via one of the accredited Registrars of the Internet Cooperation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"). Although there are new gTLDs, the most popular are:
• .com (company)
• .net (network)
• .org (organization)
ccTLDs or country code TLD indicates country origins. It uses a 2-letter system of identification. For example, the ccTLD for Singapore is ".sg".

ccTLDs are administered by a Network Information Centre ("NIC") in each country.

Getting that Domain Name
Domain names are registered with the relevant registration authority before they can be usable as an internet address. Registration needs constant renewing as it is valid only for a certain period of time. But remember, domain names are obtained on a "first come, first served" basis. As cybersquatters target valuable trade marks at various domain levels in many jurisdictions, the old adage "prevention is better than cure" holds true in the cyber-arena.

Register the domain name before the cybersquatter does so.