Passive defense, brand monitoring. Opportunities and challenges coexist for many small and medium-size businesses. To apply for a special top level domain, a business needs to pay up to 185,000$ and satisfy a serial of standards set by ICANN. Many of them cannot afford the expense or fail to meet the requirements. Experts recommend this kind of business should consider a membership in the international brand monitoring organization for timely availability of latest updates on the brand domain connected to its business to guard against being registered by its competitors or other international organizations. Take panda - a pride of China - as an example. It would be transformed from China’s national treasure into a brand of other country or a representative of other business if it is registered by other country. However, some problems remain that the reputation of the brand is tarnished by cybersquatters who make money through registering this kind of domain suffix, which risk the business should take into account. Expert advice is given against this scheme for its high comprehensive cost and low opportunity for a successful settlement of the dispute.

Active protection, brand promotion. If a business chooses not to compete for the domain name, then it may pay more in future for protecting their trademarks against cybersquatters. It is said that Sina bought the domain weibo.com at such high price of 8 million RMB. The open application for new top-level domains will allow applying for such domains as .weibo at cost-effective price, thus better protecting and developing Sina Weibo brand. Therefore, for well-known brands, this will be a good opportunity for them to apply for their own brand domains and major brands and businesses can buy their own exclusive domain name, such as .google/.apple. These domain names will make people more convenient access to related sites, and further enhance the brand awareness.

Proactive, innovative application. Businesses may apply for brand-related domain (either Chinese or English), and then make innovation combined with their own business model. For example, Aigo will use next-generation Internet address IPv6 technology in its strategy for the Internet of things, to achieve wireless interconnection of various digital devices by giving "unique" IP address to each mobile phone, camera, digital photo frame or tablet PC. In consideration of the simplicity and ease to assign URLs for each product, it has become necessary to apply for top-level domain.