Overview

If you've already chosen a domain name, your first step should be to register it with a domain name registration service. This will give you the exclusive right to use that domain name.
You may want to register a name—or more than one—even if you haven't yet searched for possible trademark conflicts (see Chapter 6) or made a final decision about your domain name. Websites are going up in great numbers, and if you wait, you may lose the name you want. You do risk wasting the amount of the reservation or registration fee if you later decide to use a different name. But that risk may be worth it if you do ultimately decide to use your first choice and you've managed to prevent someone else from grabbing it first.
Example:Geoff wants to use the domain name doctortrademark.com for his website, which offers legal advice on trademarks. He checks the availability of that name and learns that it has been taken. Geoff then checks drtrademark.com and finds that it's available. Although Geoff knows (because he has read Chapter 7) that using such a similar domain name might infringe the doctortrademark.com trademark, he decides to go ahead and reserve the name until he can do some more investigation regarding the other "Doctor Trademark" website.
If the exact domain name you want has been taken by someone else, you will not be able to register it unless you have already been using the name as a trademark and are willing to take the steps described in Chapter 5 to assert your legal rights as a trademark owner.
CautionDon't be a cybersquatter. It is against federal law to register someone else's personal or business name as your domain name, if you're doing it because you want to sell the name back to its owner for a profit.
If you are choosing a domain name for the purpose of using it on a website that will be doing legitimate commerce, you have nothing to worry about. However, if you are buying up domain names so you can sell them later, you should definitely get some advice from a lawyer about the legality of your activity. The federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, the law that prohibits cybersquatting, is discussed in detail in Chapter 5.