MarkMonitor Inc. is an American software company founded in 1999. It develops software intended to protect corporate brands from Internet counterfeiting, fraud, piracy, and cybersquatting. It also develops and publishes reports on the prevalence of brand abuse on the Internet. MarkMonitor acquired AllDomains in 2001 and DtecNet in 2010. MarkMonitor was then purchased by

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

in 2012. In 2016, the IP division of Reuters, including MarkMonitor, was sold to two venture capital companies, under the new parent company

Clarivate Analytics Clarivate Plc is a British-American publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business / market intelligence, and competitive profiling for p ...

History

MarkMonitor was founded in 1999 in Boise, Idaho and its initial business as a service provider for the protection of corporate trademarks on the Internet. In 2000, MarkMonitor gained

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

accreditation status for domain registration and acquired a domain management business called AllDomains the following year. In October 2010, MarkMonitor acquired an anti-piracy company (DtecNet) and was itself purchased by

' Intellectual Property & Science business in July 2012.

Research

According to the MarkMonitor web site, it has been publishing a report called the

Brandjacking Brandjacking is an activity whereby someone acquires or otherwise assumes the online identity of another entity for the purposes of acquiring that person's or business's brand equity. The term combines the notions of 'branding' and 'wikt:hijacking, ...

Index since 2007, to assess how Internet threats affect corresponding brands. The company's annual report says that cybersquatting increased 18 percent in 2008 and " phishing attacks" rose 36 percent in the first quarter of 2009. In 2010, the company estimated that $200 billion in revenues is lost annually as a result of worldwide counterfeiting and piracy on the Internet. The 2011 report said the company had identified 23,000 listings "for clones, suspected counterfeits, or gray market" versions of tablet computers by 8,000 sellers. A 2011 opinion piece in

Techdirt Techdirt is an American Internet blog that reports on technology's legal challenges and related business and economic policy issues, in context of the digital revolution. It focuses on intellectual property, patent, information privacy and cop ...

criticized the research methodology of MarkMonitor's report.

Corporate structure

Half of MarkMonitor's employees are based at its San Francisco facility where its "brand protection solutions" division is located. Domain development, administration and customer service personnel are located in Boise, Idaho, and their anti-fraud and security center is based in Washington DC.

Products and services

According to MarkMonitor, it develops and markets brand protection software and services to combat counterfeiting, piracy, cybersquatting and paid search scams in four categories; domain management, antifraud software, brand protection and antipiracy. The Idaho Statesman reported that "MarkMonitor safeguards more than half of the Fortune 100 brands". MarkMonitor provides services to

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

, and

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

, among others.

References

External links

* {{Official Clarivate Online companies of the United States Software companies established in 1999 1999 establishments in California American companies established in 1999