The Nonprofit Times has a good story today about the potential perils of Cyber-squatting, and how better domain management can help protect you. This probably applies more to the larger nonprofits out there, the kind who generate enough web site traffic to warrant the investment this kind of fraud takes. But, it could happen to anyone.

More importantly for most orgs, it raises the general issue of managing your domain wisely. Even if your organization is not likely to fall victim to cyber-squatters, not knowing where your domain is registered or who is listed as the contact is an issue for any organization.

PIR, the Public Interest Registry, launched a campaign this year to ProtectYour.org. They cite key 5 steps to protecting your domain:

1. Verify registration of your .ORG domains
2. Verify and update .ORG administrative contact information regularly
3. Check that email contact information is valid
4. Consolidate .ORG domains names with one registrar
5. Register your .ORG domain name for the maximum time