IndyMedia Who?
One of the most important things to do when setting up a website for a campaign, etc. is to make sure you buy at least the .com, .net, and .org versions of your URL.
Take for example Indy Media. Here is a fantastic resource for getting news that is not filtered through the corporate media. The URL is IndyMedia.org. But if you mistakenly go to IndyMedia.com, you end up at a website which is squatting on IndyMedia.org’s branding and offering all of the mainstream, corporate media sources, with a heavy dose of conservatives.
While both were originally launched in 1999, IndyMedia.com claims it was originally supposed to be about movies and only recently has it relaunched in order to make money. The result is that IndyMedia.com presents the antithesis of IndyMedia.org.
So don’t let this happen to you. The worst thing you can do is let your branded URL fall into the hands of your opponents. And with domain registers like GoDaddy charging about $9 a year to buy the URLs, getting 2 extras will not break your bank…but it may save your brand.