Go2 - 10:04 pm on Jun 21, 2002 (gmt 0)

You are absolutely right, brand names are certainly one valid reason to get ccTLDs. Coca-Cola, Google, IBM, they were all taken for the ccTLDs I tried in my browser.

The downside of protecting a brand is cost. While about 10-20 major ccTLDs is nothing compared to patent rights in terms of cost they may still be a significant expense for small businesses especially in the start up phase. The benefit of these ccTLDs has to be weighed against the alternative use for an equivalent money investment.

In the long run I think that the importance of ccTLDs will diminish. The reason being that if mycompany registers only in a ccTLD they may get confused with mycompany.com, however the opposite is less likely to happen. As a result, companies will favor using a .com domain to a ccTLD. By the same token I think that the new .info, .biz. and .name TLDs will not be as common as people think.