MarkMonitor, Inc. is a company that develops Internet brand protection software and services.^[1] It was founded in Boise, Idaho in 1999. Today it is headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices in Boise, London and Washington DC.^[2] Over half of the Fortune 100 are clients of MarkMonitor, as are AAA,^[3] Facebook,^[4] Google, and the Wikimedia Foundation.^[5] It has software products for domain management, anti-fraud, brand protection and anti-piracy.

The company conducts routine research about trademark, counterfeit, and copyright issues.^[6] MarkMonitor was active in discussions around ICANN’s move to create new domain names,^[7][8] and has remained neutral on SOPA.^[9]

History[link]

MarkMonitor was founded by Faisal Shah and James Hepworth in Boise, Idaho in 1999. Shah and Hepworth were early adopters at recognizing the Internet and its content would become a new market for intellectual property protection. The company was originally branded as “online brand protection.” In the mid-2000’s it was referred to as security “outside the firewall.” Today the company again refers to its products as “online brand protection.”^[3] When the company was first founded it was focused exclusively on protecting corporate trademarks online, but grew into more services over time. MarkMonitor acquired a domain management business in 2001,^[10] and an anti-piracy company in 2010.^[11][12]

Research[link]

MarkMonitor is a software and services vendor, not a research company, but they do routinely conduct research on issues related to their business such as counterfeit products, domain squatting, intellectual property and trademark violations in their Brandjacking Indexes. These studies have found:

• More than 23,000 listings of suspected counterfeits of five tablet makers across 23 online stores.^[13][14][15]

• 6,000 suspects selling more than 1.2 million counterfeit sports apparels from five major leagues for a total of $25 million.^{[16][17][18][19]}

• Hotels could be losing $1.9 billion annually from legal “brandjacking” practices by partners and competitors. One example is a travel agent using searches on a major hotel to capture prospects that would have otherwise gone directly to their hotel partner.^[20]

• 1,251 websites contain one of five examined luxury brands in their domain URL and 56 suspects were placing search ads to divert traffic from the luxury brand’s legitimate website to their counterfeit goods site. The company also identified 1,432 sellers of suspicious goods with a combined 3,590 listings for the five brand names on 10 auction and classifieds sites.^[21]

• Out of 3,000 online pharmacies offering swine flu cures during the 2009 epidemic, only four were certified by the National Association Boards of Pharmacy.^[22]

• Out of 53 billion visits analyzed across 100 websites, there were 51 million visitors to sites selling fake prescription drugs and 87 million to sites selling fake products.^[23][24]

• One in seven brand-driven paid search clicks are driven to a location in violation of trademark law, affiliate agreements or the DMCA.^[25]

• In 2009 phishing attacks through social networking sites increased 240 percent over the prior year and attacks on payment services rose 285 percent.^[26][27]

• MarkMonitor identified an increase of an illegal injection called “Barbie Jab”, a drug sold in the UK that gives users a tan.^[28]

Corporate[link]

MarkMonitor collaborates with almost a dozen anti-phishing, anti-counterfeiting and intellectual property organizations like the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC), International Trademark Association (INTA), and the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).^[29]

Board members[link]

MarkMonitor board members include: Irfan Salim, President and CEO, MarkMonitor; Dave Barrett, general partner, Polaris Venture Partners; Stephen J. Harrick, managing director and partner, Institutional Venture Partners; Jim Sayre, president, Cargill Ventures; and Warren Weiss, general partner, Foundation Capital. In 2009 MarkMonitor added Susan Whiting, Vice Chair of the Nielsen Companies to its board of directors.^[30] In 2012 Warren Jenson, CFO of Acxiom, also joined the board.^[31]

Controversy[link]

In 2011 ICANN made a controversial move to create new top-level domain names like .CANON or .camera. MarkMonitor was active in the public discussion around fears of increased cybersquatting^[32][33] and participated in ICANN’s comment and review process.^[34]

MarkMonitor has remained neutral on SOPA. The company says they support legislation that protects the rights of intellectual property and trademark owners, without harming the free and open internet.^[9] MarkMonitor research has been used by pro-SOPA backers like the US Chamber of Commerce to establish the level of existing copyright infringement. As a result, some have criticized the research as obvious or flawed or scrutinized the use of the data to support SOPA.^[35] None of the research by MarkMonitor advocates a specific policy or government action, but does establish how prolific certain copyright issues are.^[6]

Software and services[link]

MarkMonitor develops and markets brand protection software and services to combat counterfeiting, piracy, cybersquatting and paid search scams in four categories;^[29] domain management, antifraud software, brand protection and antipiracy. 22 percent of the top 500 websites have domains registered with MarkMonitor.^[9] MarkMonitor acquired antipiracy software with the acquisition of DtecNet in 2010.^[36][37]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• BrandJacking Index Reports

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Fred Feldman is a Marxist activist in the United States, and a former leader of the Socialist Workers Party (USA).^[1]

Feldman came into political activity through the Student Peace Union at the University of Pennsylvania, which was led by supporters of the Trotskyist Young Socialist Alliance such as Feldman and Robin Maisel. Maisel and Feldman joined the YSA late in 1964, after supporting the SWP campaign against Johnson and Goldwater. He was arrested seven times during the Maryland Freedom Rides.

He later joined the SWP, becoming a writer on international politics for its publications and for Intercontinental Press/Inprecor. In 1973 he wrote, with George Johnson, 'On the Nature of the Vietnamese Communist Party' (International Socialist Review, Volume 34, no 7, July/August 1973, pp4–9, 63-90) and later 'Vietnam, Stalinism and the Postwar Socialist Revolutions' (International Socialist Review, Volume 35, no 4, April 1974, pp26–61). These two articles helped develop a deep discussion in the Fourth International on the topic.

In 1974 he co-authored 'The first three Internationals, their history and lessons' with George Novack and Dave Frankel. Between 1974 and 1978 he edited 'Towards a History of the Fourth International', a series of educational bulletins.

His best known work, written in 1989 with Georges Sayad, is Palestine and the Arabs' Fight for Liberation.

After a period of deep changes in the SWP were made under the leadership of Jack Barnes, Feldman left the SWP, arguing that SWP had become a much less effective current in the workers movement. He has since joined Solidarity (US).

References[link]