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I am lucky to have found the most ideal domain name with TLDs free. the problem comes in with local one of competitor's country here :)

I thought generally buying all secondaries (non-TLDs like own and neighbouring country suffixes, biz, info) would be better to do.

This is a close (but in many ways, specially in apparent client/product strategy, not alike) competitor that is almost at same early stage as me. I am considering whether I should buy the local domain suffix for this competitor's country, too, whose one-time cost is 15 times all other necessary endings.

The reason is that I thought the competitor might buy my for example myfirm.fr domain, and redirect it to his service. that means that country's users who type their local ending thinking it belongs to me would be sent to the competitors page.

do you think the competitor can be that openly 'cunning'? is such a practice common? do examples of these exist?

or should I be relaxed and just rely on TLDs and the most immediate local suffixes?

thank you very much for your opinions!

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Isn't this, essential, exactly the same question that was asked here? answers.onstartups.com/questions/15868/… I can't see how the answer would be any different? – Ryan Jan 18 '12 at 14:00
yes indeed, ryan, but on the other page the post appeared so in the middle of older posts that I wasnt sure if it would be noticed at all (though maybe earlier commentors are sent a mail notification)..that's why..else I know necessities of keeping a tidy environment :), and you may delete this post if needs be. – obady Jan 18 '12 at 15:25
I deleted the other post because it was a question posted as an answer. This is the right way to do it. – Zuly Gonzalez♦ Jan 18 '12 at 16:01
yeah, wasnt sure like I mentioned there, just that the issue was rather related. but like you say, this is the right way, sorry :) – obady Jan 18 '12 at 22:07
I get why obady's q was moved here but I mean isn't this question essentially the same as the other question by Owen-Fraser-Green? I can't see the difference myself. – Ryan Jan 18 '12 at 22:55
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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

It depends on how much do you trust on your product/service and the take-off of your site, if you think that other people outside of your country will find your website idea interesting enough like to make a clone I would suggest to cover all TLD's - It will be expensive but some how it's wort. Other options are patenting or registering a TM (trade mark) but I don't know which is cheapper, and if any of both will be cheaper than just buy the domain names.

do you think the competitor can be that openly 'cunning'?

Yes and No - it's a bad practice not all competitors have the same morals and ethics.

is such a practice common?

No so common now as it is seen as a deceptive practice

do examples of these exist?

Not one that I can point to you right know, but a more common practice is where the company/business buy lots of related domains (similar busines name or keywords), and or dropped domain names (usually from similar business) to redirect users to their site.

or should I be relaxed and just rely on TLDs and the most immediate local suffixes?

Internet changes every day, so I would not say relax or rely TLDs and the most immediate local suffixes. Remember that may not be a competitor that buy myfirm.fr domain, anyone may do that if he/she think that the domain may get some hits.

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do examples of these exist?

Learn from Groupon. They failed or late with the domain groupon.cn, it ended up some Chinese business guy bought it and created a similar one to their design.

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