What's in a name?

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Published: 12:00am, 8 Nov 2006

After reaping windfalls in Macau's property boom, some speculators have turned their eyes to the less-explored opportunities for profits in cyberspace. They count on sharp rises in the value of internet domain names related to the casino city.

Since the opening of the Sands casino in 2004, hundreds of website domain names describing Macau's new hotels and casinos - or simply referring to the city - have been registered in a rush of cyber-squatting. Cyber-squatters are people who prey on big companies by registering internet names using words associated with the firms, then asking to be bought out.

In the US, the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 makes cyber-squatting liable to civil action. But Macau has no such law.

Some creative squatters choose more generic names. For instance, the domain name www.macau.st, newly on sale, has attracted offers as high as 100,000 patacas for its owner, speculator Sam Lai. At first glance, there is nothing special about it. The '.st' ending is the country code for Sao Tome and Principe, a small African nation, and anyone in the world can register it. The name fits Macau beautifully because the city has traditionally been called 'Macau Street' for its tiny size.

Mr Lai isn't selling yet, hoping for higher offers. He has come up with over 50 Macau-related domain names, including go2macau.com and 18sauna.com, which targets a highly lucrative brothel in the city. He believes many Macau companies have given little thought to cyber-squatting. In fact, most local companies have not even started promoting themselves online. Fewer than 2,000 names have been registered under Macau's domain, '.mo.' By comparison, Hong Kong has over 113,000 under its '.hk' domain.

In the past, doing business in tiny Macau required little online marketing. Now, tourists are becoming the major source of revenue for an increasing number of local firms, so the need is growing.