Broker’s of domain names such as GoDaddy have tons of money flying around. Naming your business has its pros and cons. Some names have value, some are worthless. Factor the sale price of a business and its name and you have a formally noted asset. Domain names are now being referred to as “virtual real estate”, which seems to be a fair description.

In practice, domain names are a profile as well as an identity. A rep is built by a name, and that matters for advertising and marketing purposes. Being someone nobody’s ever heard of isn’t good market strategy. Domain names generate traffic, particularly from the address bar. Some domain names can sell for $1000 all the way up to millions of dollars. In business registration, there’s a statutory process of checking names for incorporation of companies. You can’t go out and pick a random name without checking it since there is a possibility someone else may own the name.

Checking domain names matter to advertisers because the use of names or expressions owned by other people is legally risky. Made up names in particular are dangerous. Even if you use them unintentionally, with no desire to rip anyone off, and without knowledge of the existence of a name, things can get messy. By rights, you need to check your material. It is possible to unintentionally plagiarize, and under international copyright laws, if you do so, and that material exists “in tangible form” elsewhere, you could be in trouble.