Nearly 100 percent of the real estate projects of the famous groups in Vietnam have lost the “.com” domain names coinciding with the names of the projects.

Sources said that the owners of the projects have been quietly trying to buy back the important domain names in order to avoid a “media crisis.”

In the world, the owners of big projects always register the domain names right after they choose the names for the projects and before following the procedures to set up legal entities, to develop the projects and officially begin providing services.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese real estate developers do not have the habit.

Experts say that domain names can be described as the “addresses” of the projects, which are indispensable to the establishment of the websites of the projects. The domain names can be used not only to serve the marketing and the sale in the pre-project period, but also in the time after the projects officially become operational.

In Vietnam, a series of real estate projects capitalized from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide, located in advantageous positions still do not have “.com” domain names. These include Becamex Tower, Aroma Luxury Shop, Leman CT Plaza, CT Plaza Saigon, CT Sphinx Golf Residences, CT Plaza Da Nang, Danang Diamond Tower, Sonasea Villas Resort, Sonasea Residences, Sonasea Golf Estates, Dream House Resort, Hapro Center, An Phu Thinh Plaza, Pullman Saigon Centre, Sabeco World Trade Center, Times Square Saigon, Times Square Hanoi, BIDV Tower, Saigon One Tower, Vinaland Tower developed by the real estate giants Becamex, C.T Group, CEO Group.

Meanwhile, the domain names which coincide with the names of the projects are being used for marketing on the website banhitlagai.com of Nguyen Trong Khoa, the portrait who has become well known after the visit to Vietnam of Facebook’s CEO in December 2011.

Khoa said that he accidentally read on newspapers about the setting up of a lot of huge real estate projects, while he knew that no one bothered registering the domain names. Therefore, Khoa decided to spend money to buy the domain names.

According to Khoa, the total investment capital of the huge projects which lost domain names may reach 50 billion dollars.

The fact that many real estate projects lost the domain names has raised the question about the marketing and project development capability of the real estate developers.

Tien phong has quoted experts as saying that once the domain names, called as the “souls” of the projects are lost, the confidence of customers and finance investors in the projects would decrease, which would lead to many other consequences.

In fact, not only real estate developers, but the giants in the information technology have also lost their domain names. The domain name Vinaphone.com, which coincides with the domain name of one of the biggest mobile networks in Vietnam VinaPhone, has been led to another website. VinaPhone is trying to buy back the domain name to settle the trouble.

Most recently, local newspapers reported that BKAV, an anti-virus solution providers, had to spend 2.3 billion dong to buy the domain name from an US person who registered the domain name in 1997.

Prior to that, Dang Le Nguyen Vu, General Director of Trung Nguyen Coffee Company also learned a lesson when the domain name www.trungnguyencoffee.com was registered by a Viet Kieu in the US.

Source: Tien phong/ VNN