Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger
as an individual or business you own your own name. It is your brand. And, as we know, identity theft is when someone uses your name to the ill-gotten gain. Well, if they have indeed registered your name as a dot-com, or used a slight variation of your name on Facebook, alongside a profile photo of you?
cybersquatting 
cybersquatters squat for many reasons, including for fun, hoping to resell the domain name, using the field of advertising of goods competition, harassment, harassment or outright fraud.
name Grabbing someone gave is also a form of cybersquatting and that happens in social networks and Twitter. Twitter is affected by 
There are also several "Kevin Mitnicks" (pirates) on Facebook, which has even prevented the real Kevin Mitnick to access their Facebook account. After Mitnick legitimately bitched about it and made a call CNET, Facebook listened and fixed the problem, saying: "We are very aggressive in the promotion and implementation of our name and culture 
Cybersquatting is also maliciously for purposes of fraud. Identity thieves jack an area similar to that of a bank and create a fake site, which they then use for phishing. Often if the domain is not available, they will do the next best thing.. typosquatting Annualcreditreport.com was a victim of it when the site launched, more than 200 similar domain names were snapped
. This is one more reason to protect you against identity theft.
Back in the day, I was accused of cybersquatting! I was not, I swear! it was the early 90s and I had a 3.1 operating system Microsoft Consultant IBM PS1 and a rockin '150MB hard drive. I bought domains. I sold some, others, unfortunately I gave up. and there was one that will haunt me "until the day I die.
I LEDZEPPELIN.com property for about 5-6 years. Led Zeppelin was and is my group, and as a fan, I bought the domain name as a souvenir. I get emails from people all over the world, saying things like: "I'm Paulo in Brazil, I love Led Zep" 
Then when Clinton adopted a law! later, making it illegal cybersquatting, I knew it was only a matter of time. I've had it for 5 years before someone from the group's legal team approached me about it. and when they did it, I did not know how to handle it. And my lawyer at the time, even less. in the end, I gave up without a fight, but I'm sure the lawyers of the charged group the thick book of 1 inch a trial served with me. Sorry, guys. My bad.
in this case, the lawyers saw an opportunity to build a case against me, a fan who would have been happy with a stupid guitar pick Jimmy. instead I sat in silence for a year then they built a huge case for why they should own the field. When served, I freaked out and have called them, shouting that they could take, I never wanted that.
One of the few regrets. But I have a beautiful 1 inch thick memory all around me and the band and why I'm an idiot.
Anyway, back to cybersquatting. A recent New York Times sourced MarkMonitor, a domain name seller and society which protects brand names from misuse and followed by an increase of 18 percent in the incidence of cybersquatting.
This means that as a brand or an individual (or group eesh) you should get your name on social networking sites or domain name immediately. Next, get your names for children as well.
Because one day they can be famous Zeppelin and having to fight a twit like me.
See Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discuss DNS issues here.
Robert Siciliano is CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com, an expert on identity theft, professional speaker, security analyst, published author and television news correspondent. Siciliano works with Fortune 1000 and start-up companies as a consultant on product launches, branding, messaging, representation, SEO and media. the thoughts and advice of Siciliano on all these issues often appear in both television and print media news, including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, Forbes and USA Today. He has 25 years of safety training as a member of the American Society for Industrial Security. He is the author of two books, including The Safety Minute: Living on high alert; How to take control of your personal safety and to prevent fraud . He also established a partnership with Uni-Ball to help raise awareness of the growing threat of identity theft and provide tips on how you can protect yourself.