Corporate news

Monitoring services for protecting your brand

According to a statistical study conducted by the European Commission, the period between 2018 and 2021 was characterized by a considerable increase in cybersquatting cases, particularly domain name fraud (+25.46% in 2021), phishing (+18.71%), and counterfeit (+5.21%). In this increasingly hostile context, defining a global, online brand protection strategy is an important question for maintaining control over your online presence.

To help you to better defend your intellectual property, Gandi Corporate Services offers two complimentary brand monitoring tools:

  • Domain Registration Monitoring: a domain name monitoring service that helps you to rapidly react to fraud related to domain names with the goal of being able to intervene, sometimes even before content can be published on the domain name (for phishing, etc.)
  • Content Monitoring: a content monitoring service for stopping counterfeiting, protecting your customers from fraud and other online scams, particularly when the domain name is used to deploy illicit content doesn’t use the brand deliberately.

Quickly react to domain-related fraud with domain monitoring

The benefits of a domain monitoring service

Fraud related to domain names is a threat that’s become all too common for businesses. The easiness of domain name registration, accessible pricing, a lack of awareness of actors in the B2B market are some of the main reasons that make the digital space precarious for businesses.

A domain monitoring service enables you to monitor domains and subdomains that use a particular trademark. The goal is to detect illegitimate uses or potential threats in order to protect a business, its customers, or its employees and partners from a wide range of threats, including:

  • phishing

Le service de surveillance permet de surveiller les noms de domaine et sous-domaines qui reprennent le nom d’une marque. L’objectif est de détecter les utilisations illégitimes ou menaces potentielles pour protéger une entreprise, ses clients ou ses collaborateurs de diverses menaces :

  • phishing (hameçonnage),
  • identity theft for the purposes of requesting false money transfers
  • selling of counterfeit products

By opting for Gandi Corporate Services’s monitoring service, you ensure:

  • robust responsivity to domain-related fraud
  • brand protection for a much more affordable budget than individual registrations of a large number of domain names
  • lighten the burden of self-managing your domain name portfolio

How does the domain monitoring service work?

Gandi Corporate Services’s domain name monitoring service acts via a system that monitors the internet to detect illegitimate uses of domain names and subdomains.

The effectiveness of this solution—specially developed by our experts to meet the growing need for protection—relies on three major strengths:

  • responsiveness: an illegitimate domain name is most often detected within 24 hours of its registration, so as to be able to take the necessary defensive measures as quickly as possible
  • comprehensiveness: more than 1,200 TLDs are included in this service’s coverage, for a total of nearly 200 million domain names monitored daily. This catalog is extended with every new TLD introduced on the market
  • innovation: monitoring extends to subdomains (part of the address of a site that preceeds a domain name), to typographic variants (an additional or missing letter, two letters flipped, etc.), as well as IDN homoglyphs (use of visually similar or identical characters in non-Latin alphabets) in order to ensure optimal coverage

This search takes place year-round, 365 days per year, and automatic alerts defined for the most sensitive brands are sent daily. That way, you can quickly react and contest registrations that violate your Intellectual Property rights. If you want advice on legal aspects, be aware that you can benefit from advice from Gandi Corporate Services via add-on services like formal notices, UDRP (Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy, the process for resolving domain name disputes created by ICANN) procedures and other protection mechanisms.

Gandi Corporate Services’s domain name monitoring service is, as a result, a good starting point for any business wanting to protect its brand(s) while keeping the budget under control. Going further in the online defense strategy, it can be complemented by a content monitoring service, which is particularly pertinent for e-commerce businesses.

Stop counterfeits with online content monitoring services

Why do you need an online content monitoring services?

Implementing an online content monitoring service enables you to identify infringements on intellectual property rights and fight against online counterfeiting. These more and more common scourges online have a real negative impact on a brand’s image, to the point of causing some loss of customers. In the face of this situation, Gandi Corporate Services has made different partnerships in order to provide online content monitoring.

In comparison with the domain monitoring service, the online content monitoring service offers complimentary coverage since it’s set up on:

  • marketplaces
  • social networks
  • mobile applications

This multidimensional dynamic brings considerable added value to brands that are victims of actions that go against their brand and image. It makes it possible for a business to assess the use of their brand and to take back control thanks to the delegation of:

  • identifying and prioritizing abuse
  • deleting fraudulent announcements
  • tracking and dismantling online and offline networks by collecting evidence

How does the online content service work?

The effectiveness of the online content monitoring service is explained by its combination of technology and human expertise. This technology works by continously scanning the internet to identify illegitimate uses.

These data are then processed in order to target the primary offenders, to obtain proof and do what’s required to delete fraudulent activities and announcements. These actions enrich Artificial Intelligence of this technology, thereby creating a virtuous cycle that assures optimal monitoring and particularly reactive over time.

As a result, the content monitoring service is particularly strategic for businesses whose brand image has been tarnished by counterfeit.

Gandi Corporate Services’s advice

These two monitoring services offer complementary in their roles in brand protection, as much in the coverage of their research as in the goals targeted. Combining them makes it possible to paint a precise picture of how a brand name is used online and to preserve a business’s reputation.

In implementing a defensive brand protection strategy, we recommend first looking into the domain monitoring tool, relevant and accessible to any type of business. According to the specific needs of each business, notably, in partciular in the case of those whose main activity is online sales, protection can be augmented by the online content monitoring tool.

To learn more about monitoring services, please feel free to contact your Account manager or write the Gandi Corporate Services team at corporatecontact@gandi.net.