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Case Study

Telecom Emirates

By Allen J. Morrison and Shawn Gunnarson

3 pages

June 2013

Reference: IMD-3-2396

The company’s chief commercial officer has just become aware that other companies might begin registering domain names that are offensive to Telecom Emirates. He is worried that the company’s brand could be sabotaged by registering key names (or close variants) in new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) like .app or .web. Another concern was that direct attacks on the company’s intellectual property might be carried out by competitors who could register the company’s key names and then redirect Telecom Emirates customers to themselves. The company is lacking a strategy and policies for dealing with these new threats and the chief commercial officer is considering his next move.

Learning Objective

The case provides an excellent vehicle for reviewing the fundamentals of Internet governance and how they affect business strategy. The case addresses how different approaches to governing the Internet’s technical infrastructure can affect businesses and how companies can shape Internet regulatory policies that impact their strategies and influence the value of their brands. The case also promotes a discussion of the critical issues of domain name ownership and disputes, including how malicious third parties can undermine a company’s brand and degrade its reputation.

Keywords

Branding

Settings

Middle East
2013

Type

Generalized Experience

Available Languages

English

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