Newswise — With Facebook offering vanity URLs for the first time tomorrow, social media expert Susan Jacobson, of Temple University's journalism department, advises organizations as well as celebrities and politicians to claim their URLs early to avoid having to battle later with a cybersquatter.
"Generally speaking the best defense against cybersquatting and/or potential malicious use of a famous name is to register accounts in your company's name on new social media sites as soon as they emerge," she explained. "Waiting for a service to catch on or to become newsworthy is waiting too long. Cybersquatters will start registering names as soon as they become aware of a new service. While it is possible to get your name back, it will take some time and could be costly."
Jaconson likens it to the early days of the internet when regular citizens would rush to buy domain names (i.e., www.madonna.com) and then sell them to celebrities for millions of dollars.
Famous name Facebook users are going to be interested in the vanity URLs because it will make it easier for non-Facebook users to find them, noted Jacobson.
Those Facebook users who restrict access to their information may find it more convenient for their friends to connect to them with the vanity URLs, but their friends will still have to log in to see their restricted information she said.
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