"The hotly anticipated November UK launch of the Apple iPhone could be marred by the emergence of a cybersquatting row involving the registration of key O2 and Apple domain names bearing no association to either brand."

So says Brand Republic reporting that many of the more obvious domain names for the O2/Apple iPhone alliance have been nagged by entrepreneurial squatters, no doubt inspired by the six figures sum Apple paid to the person who registered iPhone.com in the States.

The sites highlighted include o2iphone.co.uk and o2iphone.net that link to adverts, as well ukiphone.co.uk that leads consumers in the direction of getting their iPhones unlocked - via iphonessuck.com.

It appears this "threat" to the iPhone's sales success in the UK may have been raised by domain registration company NetNames, I suspect in order to highlight the importance of making sure your company name slash product title is safely registered.

It's highly doubtful that O2 and Apple were planning to launch a joint UK site, and somehow I don't think it will put off any consumer with half a shred of intelligence from actually being able to track down the official vendors of the Apple mobile - and - if it does, then frankly they don't deserve one.

>> Via - Brandrepublic (sign up required)