Now that the Internet is such a vital commercial tool there the domain name market involves more serious legislation. The law now endeavours to protect the rights of businesses with prominent trademarks. There have been cases around the world testing the rights of people to register whatever domain name they choose.

New Zealand domain names .co.nz are not required to reflect your registered business name. Other domains however are not an open market and are moderated by a central registry. If the domain name you want has already been registered you may be able to negotiate with the holder of the name to purchase it from them. There are also websites like E-bay that auction domain names. If you're interested in the earning potential of domain names see The domain name aftermarket.

The domain name aftermarket
There have been millions of dot com names registered, so in recent years there has been a shortage of quality names.

As the market has expanded organisations have come into existence to manage the acquisition and on-selling of domain names. This trading space is known as the domain name aftermarket.

To address the issue of market saturation new domain spaces have now been created resulting in a fresh pool of domain names. This means many companies are taking the opportunity to register more appropriate domain names for their business or simply shorter ones. The .com market is effectively saturated, so the release of .biz and .info and .name ensure a clearer indication of the nature of someone's business and also better potential to secure a name that you want.