Some firms, like Chase, buy 'anti-domains' to protect themselves from ridicule of rivals As sites condemning everyone from Amazon.com to Wal-Mart attest, the Internet is an unprecedented forum for consumer scorn, but a growing number of companies have quietly discovered that the Web gives them an unprecedented opportunity to fight back.

The method: Offend yourself first.

To keep some inherently derogatory domain names out of enemy hands, Charles Schwab & Co. has registered the domains Screwschwab.com and schwabsucks.com. Likewise, EarthLink Networks recently registered Earthlinksucks.com, while Volvo owns Volvosucks.com.

Some firms have even moved to quell disquiet before there is a product to attack. Discount airline site Priceline registered Priceline-sucks.com and Pricelinesucks.com on April 3, three days before the company's actual site launched.

In all, at least two dozen companies--or their advertising or public relations firms--have registered these anti-domains, according to the InterNIC's Whois database. Most of the action has taken place since the beginning of this year.

"It's really sort of a preemptive kind of strike, that's the thinking," explained Schwab vice president and associate general counsel Scott Campbell.

Why choose those domains in particular? "It was sort of judgment and experience," said Campbell, adding that the idea originated with Schwab's technology people.

For creativity, few can match Chase Manhattan Bank, which registered the .com domains Ihatechase, Chasestinks, Chasesucks, and even Chaseblows. Chase declined to discuss its strategy, as did other firms, but some called the practice a futile endeavor.

"It's a waste of time and money," said James Alexander, president of eWatch, a Minneapolis company that scours the Internet for any mention, good or bad, of its corporate clients. "What's to stop someone from saying ChaseUSAsucks.com? How many variations are there? So they picked up four. So what? There are other things to focus on." "As a company," Alexander added, "if you think you make bad products or provide poor services and you think you may become a target, and you're not going to rectify that--then, you bet, go out and register everything yourproductsucks.com, because you're going to have a problem. But if you're a good company, you don't have anything to worry about, because you know if something does come up, you're going to take care of it." Thin corporate skins, however, may be understandable in light of the Internet's power to influence consumer opinion. Yahoo, for example, has an entire directory dedicated to sites that take shots at various companies: sites that call for boycotts, sites that complain about customer service blunders, sites that publicize product defects.

Some well-aimed gripe sites can make the bottom line bleed. Last year, an online computer products dealer in the Midwest blamed significant revenue loss on four complaint sites hammering its service. Thanks to meta-tagging, users seeking the corporate site often found the rogue sites first. Sales plunged. The company hired New York's Middleberg & Associates, an Internet public relations firm, to stop the slide. Middleberg contacted the rogue site owners, worked through their problems, and were able to bring most of the sites down, said Middleberg director Amy Jackson.

While complaint sites can occasionally be helpful--revealing a trend in consumer dissatisfaction, for example, or spawning ideas for repositioning a product-Jackson contended that most aren't worth the monitors they're displayed on. "Usually we say to clients, 'Don't worry about it,'" she said.

But companies do worry. Vail Resorts, meanwhile, has six such domains, including Vailresortssucks.com and Vailresortsucks .com.

It's that kind of detail that can make a company look a bit insecure, but there is an alternative. Some PR firms have registered derogatory names for clients. The domains CITsucks.com and BoycottCIT.com are owned, not by $22 billion financial house The CIT Group, but by its marketing firm, New York-based Poppe Tyson. Advertising firm FKQ of Clearwater, Fla., owns both SuperKsucks.com and SuperKmartSucks.com.

Most companies have avoided getting involved in rogue sites aimed at competitors. After all, If Company A owned a site called CompanyBsucks.com, wouldn't that make Company A look astoundingly bad? "Owning it? No. Using it? Yes," said George Sandmann, general counsel of Dallas-based NuVision Technologies. NuVision has registered the domains PictureTelSucks.com and PolycomSucks .com--PictureTel and Polycom being direct competitors of NuVision in the video teleconferencing market.

Why buy the domains? Sandmann insisted some unknown person in the marketing department, where there's "been a lot of turnover lately," was probably behind those registrations. Sandmann did take credit for securing NuVisionSucks.com and NuVisionTechSucks.com. "I didn't want to leave the domains out there for my competitors to grab and trash me," he said.

Countered Alexander, "If you solve your customers' problems, you never have to worry about mycompanysucks.com. So to all the MIS people and communications people out there: Think bigger."

Companies That Own Their Own Anti-Domains

BankPapan (Jakarta):
bankpapansucks.com

BellAtlantic:
Bigyellowsucks.com

Chase Manhattan Bank:
Chasesucks.com, ihatechase.com, chasestinks.com, chaseblows.com

Cox Communications Inc. (Atlanta):
Coxsucks.com and .net, Coxsux.com and .net

Charles Schwab & Co.:
.com sites: Schwabsucks, screwschwab

EarthLink Network:
Earthlinksucks.com

Knight-Ridder (which runs realcities.com):
Fakecities.com, fauxcities.com

NuVision Technologies (Dallas):
.com sites: nuvisionsucks, nuvisiontechsucks

Orkin Pest Control (Atlanta):
Orkinsucks.com, .net, and .org

Playboy Enterprises:
Playboyblows.com

SNET (Meriden, Conn.):
snetsucks.com and .net; snetsux.com, .net, and .org

Suburban Cable (Pa.-N.J.-Del.):
.com sites: suburbansucks, cablesucks, suburban-cablesucks, suburbancablesucks

Vail Resorts (Colo.):
.com sites: vailresortssucks, vailresortsucks, vailsucks, breckinridgesucks, beavercreeksucks, keystonesucks

Volvo Cars of North America:
volvosucks.com

Source: Network Solutions-InterNIC