Aims to protect major German, Austrian and Swiss brands from cyber-squatting and online brand damage.

NetNames, a domain name specialist, today announced the opening of its new German office in Frankfurt to protect major German, Austrian and Swiss brands from cyber-squatting and online brand damage.

NetNames will offer its Platinum Service to major German, Austrian and Swiss organisations through dedicated account managers in the region. Platinum Service is currently used by more than a third of the FTSE 100 companies and is available to any organisation with more than 50 domain names.

A typical FTSE 100 size company owns in excess of 1,000 domain names, and NetNames Platinum Service enables them to outsource their management, improve the registration, renewal and payment processes, and safeguard online intellectual property.

Rodger Armstrong, Sales and Marketing Director, NetNames commented, "The issue of online brand protection is critical for all major organisations. Germany's .de domain is the second biggest in the world and companies in this region are at a high risk from cyber-squatters and from failing to keep a tab on their domain name portfolios. The imminent launch of .eu only increases the challenges brands will face in this region. We are already working with many major brands in the UK and now is the right time for us to expand our services into Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Germany is a strategic market for NetNames and Frankfurt is the best location to support our customers in the region."