SonyEricsson Reclaims Internet Domain Name

SonyEricsson appears to have reclaimed the most logical domain name for its web site from a cyber squatter. Currently SonyEricsson's web site is at the somewhat lengthy www.sonyericssonmobile.com rather than the more obvious www.sonyericsson.com. When Ericsson and Sony announced their joint venture on April 24th last year, they seemed to forget to register their domain name (probably because they hadn't chosen their name yet) and it was grabbed three weeks later on May 19th.

While we couldn't see who registered the domain name originally, we did work out that it was registered in South Korea, and has been pointing to a couple of web sites until at least last September. The original web page actually said "welcome to sonyericsson.com" with several "under construction" images and a bit of text in Korean about the site going live soon.

The domain was taken down and the URL no longer pointed to anything until at least January 23rd - but it now points to a page hosted by Ericsson and saying that their web site will shortly be moving there.

In an era where mergers are rebranding is occurring almost every few months, companies have to be very careful to secure domain names (and their variations) for their chosen brand before they go public - and it also tends to help if companies ensure that London shopping centers don't have the same name, which almost ruined last years rebranding of BTWireless into O2."

Posted to the site on 27th February 2002