MarkMonitor®, a company that specializes in enterprise brand protection, recently released their latest Brandjacking Index™, an independent report that tracks and analyzes abuses of 30 brands from the Best Global Brands study by Interbrand. The report finds that online abuse of many of the world’s leading brands rose in 2008 and that 80 percent of abusive sites identified in 2007 were still active at the end of 2008.
Also, according to the report:
For the second year, cybersquatting – the practice of abusing trademarks within the domain name system – continued to rank as brandjackers’ tool of choice for exploiting reputable brands, growing by 18% in 2008. Brand abuse grew overall across mainstream industry brands including apparel, automotive, high technology and media. In addition, phishers expanded their targets in 2008, with 444 organizations phished for the first time.
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