Qwest Snags QwestVerizon.com…Just in Time

Telecom firm gets domain name related to mobile phone partnership.

Qwest, the smaller of the big telcos in the United States, was a little lax in picking up domains related to its fresh deal with Verizon.

Since February, rumors have been swirling that Qwest would dump Sprint in favor of Verizon as its partner for providing mobile phone service to clients. The news became “official” a few days back.

But it wasn’t until Tuesday that Qwest picked up two domain names related to the deal: QwestVerizon.com and Qwest-Verizon.com. Why did it wait so long? Either it didn’t think regarding it until then or it was scared the media (ahem) would be able to confirm the deal.

These are both bad excuses. Firms need to have a corporate policy for handling the registration of domain names in a timely manner. They also need a third party (such as a proxy service) to register the domains in a different name and host them on a separate DNS so that prying eyes don’t catch on to what their up to.