Aliso Viejo, Calif. – (September 8, 2011) – CitizenHawk, a provider of online reputation and brand protection services, has been retained by MonaVie, a global leader in premium nutrition products made from the rarest ingredients in the world, to provide comprehensive management and protection of its global portfolio of more than 600 domain names.
The new agreement calls for CitizenHawk to support three major departments within MonaVie. In addition to serving the company's marketing and compliance departments, the company assists MonaVie's internal legal department with case building and management, as well as providing Uniform Domain-Name Resolution Policy (UDRP) domain recovery services, when necessary.
"We initially hired CitizenHawk to assess whether our intellectual property was being adequately protected online," said Jeff Lilywhite, MonaVie's general counsel. "The company not only detected instances of brand infringement, but was able to shut down and eventually recover spurious domains that were siphoning off our revenues. We were so impressed with CitizenHawk’s performance we asked the company to manage and protect our entire portfolio of global domains."
According to CitizenHawk Chief Executive David Duckwitz, MonaVie faces a problem all too common among companies with well-known brands and significant e-commerce operations: being targeted by online scammers employing techniques such as typosquatting to redirect Internet traffic away from the company’s legitimate websites and toward sites specifically created to exploit consumer confusion.
"Ignoring the problem only leads to more infringement and more lost revenue,” Duckwitz said. “Yet IT and legal departments have enormous, demanding responsibilities, and they shouldn’t have to worry about tracking down infringing domains and trying to recover them," Duckwitz said. "We want to help MonaVie save time, minimize inconvenience, and perhaps even generate incremental revenue."
CitizenHawk will also help MonaVie ensure compliance among its broad distributor base.
"As a major network marketing organization, MonaVie has an extensive network of distributors that are contractually obligated to abide by the company’s strict compliance standards. These standards are designed to protect the company’s reputation as well as that of other distributors, while ensuring a positive experience for consumers,” Duckwitz said. “However, it can be extraordinarily challenging to make sure every one of a company’s distributors is complying with those standards on a consistent basis. Since our technology allows us to continually monitor MonaVie’s brand online, we can detect non-compliant behavior virtually anywhere in the world."
About CitizenHawk
CitizenHawk is one of the world's top providers of online reputation and brand protection. The firm's primary services include Corporate Domain Management, Online Brand Monitoring and Global Domain Recovery. CitizenHawk's objective is to make trademark enforcement a revenue source for its clients.
CitizenHawk has reclaimed millions of dollars in lost revenue for its clients, which include more than 100 companies on Internet Retailer's Top 500 list. The company's success is based on an array of factors, including proprietary, patent-pending technology; an in-depth understanding of the Internet, domain management and e-commerce; superior client service featuring dedicated account management; and a flexible, consultative approach to each client engagement. CitizenHawk is a closely held, venture capital-backed company. Its headquarters are in Aliso Viejo, Calif.
About MonaVie
MonaVie is a leading network marketing company that sells premium nutrition products—made from the rarest ingredients on earth—in 17 countries around the world. Launched in 2005, MonaVie became one of the fastest-growing companies in history. In 2009, the Inc. 500 listed MonaVie as the No. 1 fastest-growing private company in the Food & Beverage category, and Ernst & Young named Dallin Larsen, MonaVie’s founder and CEO, Entrepreneur of the Year. MonaVie’s product portfolio includes a line of functional beverages, a healthy energy drink, and a healthy weight management system. Learn more about MonaVie at http://www.monavie.com.
