Last week my wife bought a house, the former home of a vintner, in the village of Autignac, at the foothills of the southern Cevennes in Languedoc-Roussillon. The area is part of the Faugeres wine region. There she hopes to run a small bed and breakfast operation, beginning with two rooms this year.

She then asked me about advertising on the Internet. I knew Eric, an American in nearby Roujan, had secured the Internet domain name `frenchhotel.com' for his operation L'Auberge des Deux Soeurs. The place consists of five tourist apartments in a rambling building.

Eric had gleefully mentioned that his hold on `frenchhotel.com' had sparked resentment from another entrepreneur who had later secured `frenchhotels.com', a site which earns its money advertising, quite efficiently, about 2,000 places for tourists to stay across France.

Fortunately, both had also neglected to secure `frenchhotel.net' and `frenchhotels.net`. Now Eric is a great and helpful guy but we needed an Internet address that was easy to remember and that would help us show up on search engines when people looked for accommodation in France on the Internet.

And since all versions of `francehotel' and `francehotels' had been seized by a hotel chain I immediately secured the left over domain names for my wife's business. While I was looking I checked the "elamin.com'', ''.net'' and ".org'' domains. I found out the ".com'' and the ".net'' had been taken, the latter by a Mohamed ElAmin on January 21. Damn.

There's an important lesson here for individuals and companies. One should immediately seize all the main versions of their required domain names at once, since these, the important ".com'', ".net'' and ".org'' suffixes, may soon be taken.

Securing the full range of the Internet domains containing their names is vitally important for businesses these days. I note below a few Bermuda insurance companies that have left themselves vulnerable to domain-name speculators or cybersquatters, all for the lack of foresight to spend the equivalent of a night out at a good restaurant in Hamilton.

A domain name is a unique designation, or address, of a web site on the Internet that allows users connected to the computer network to locate the servers anywhere in the world on which the web site is located.

The original system under which ".com'' suffix was meant for commercial enterprises, ".net'' for Internet service providers and ".org'' for non-profit organisations has long since broken down. However ".com'' remains the most popular for obvious reasons. I like the ".net'' ending.

Countries also have their own specific suffixes. Bermuda's is ".bm'' and that suffix is administered by The Bermuda College. Moldova's ".md'' ending has become a big hit with cybersavvy doctors. The suffix has earned the former Soviet republic an unexpected $200,000 so far.

If you want your own domain name for your own web site you must first go to one of the approved Internet registrars and pay a fee to secure the domain name. This is a different process from putting up a web site. You don't need a domain name to put up your own web site. However, if you don't get your own domain name you will have to use someone else's Internet address with the back slash after the domain name indicating in increasing complexity where your web site is located on a particular server. It's very easy to get lost from potential customers in such a jungle.

Register.com, one of the 14 new authorised domain name registrars currently in operation. Register.com charges the standard $70 fee for a two-year registration. But you can now register in five and ten year chunks. One of the cheapest is uk2.net which charges $52 per domain. Beware of Internet providers who offer to register a domain name for you. They may quote you a fee or say it's free but on reading the fine print you'll find out you'll still have to pay the registration fee to an authorised registrar. Do it yourself and you save the cost of going through a middleman.

The BetterWhois.com site has a list of all authorised registrars. You can also search at that address to find out whether the domain name you want is available. Most of the authorised registrars only deal with the ".com'', ".net'' or ".org'' endings.

To see how valuable domain names have become, especially those of the ".com'' variety, just go to www.greatdomains.com where cybersquatters, domain name speculators, are auctioning off about 261,000 names at an average price of $32,338. One of the highest asking prices is for "drugs.com'', going for $823,456.

Many companies secure their names from cybersquatters by also buying the ".net'' and the ".org'' suffixes. Bermuda insurers seem to have fallen short in this regard. XL Capital Ltd.'s "xl'' name has been taken by a variety of companies but the company has stuck to the Bermuda root with the "xl.bm'' address. The "xlcapital.com'' domain name has been secured by another company but the ".net'' and ".org'' versions available. I assume the IT department at the company will get on the Internet as soon as they read this column or suffer the wrath of Brian.

ACE Ltd. has had less of a choice so has stuck with "ace.bm'' as far as I can see. Meanwhile, PartnerRe has taken the "partnerre.com'' and "partnerre.net'' domains but for some reason has let the "partnerre.org'' lie free. Terra Nova (Bermuda) Insurance Co. Ltd. has secured "terra-nova.com'' but the ".net'' version has been taken by the New Earth Network and the ".org'' by a gardening company. The "terranova'' domains have already been taken by various companies. Strangely "terranova.bm'' takes one to Internet service provider Web Worlds.

Stirling Cooke Brown Holdings, Ltd. has taken stirlingcookebrown.com but left ".net'' and ".org'' available. The same story goes for LaSalle Re (lasallere.com), Stockton Reinsurance Ltd. (stocktonre.com), RenaissanceRe (renre.com and glencoeins.com), Mutual Risk Management (mutrisk.com) and Centre Reinsurance (centrere.com). However Centre Reinsurance has not secured the US spelling of its name. Instead Centerre Construction Inc. has done the job. Holding company Centre Solutions has secured "centresolutions.com'' but has left the ".net'' and ".org'' versions available. Oh well. See you at "frenchhotel.net'', and "frenchhotels.net'' (which will both point to the same site), when I have the time to build something more around our cyber flag.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at ahmedelamin yhotmail.com or (01133) 467012599.