As for marks that you do not intend to use as a domain name, registering all possible misspellings, variants, and hyphenations in each of the top level domains soon gets time consuming and costly. One approach is to register as domain names only the variations for your company s important marks. Those of lesser importance can be protected with the identical domain name registration. However, if there is a variation that you do not want in the hands of someone else, seeking the registration now may avoid headaches later. No companies have been accredited to register names in any of the new TLDs.
Consumers beware, though.
There have been proposals to abolish the domain name system and adopt a directory system similar to phone numbers. These proposals seek to make domain names as common as street addresses or phone numbers, thus decreasing the value of any particular domain name. None of these proposals have come to fruition. Another solution could be better search engines to eliminate the need for the precision of typing in the exact domain name. For now, staking out trademark boundaries on the Internet by registering domain names makes good business sense.