Buy.com renamed Rakuten Shopping: brilliant branding or massive mistake?

I find myself thinking twice to remember the name even just a few minutes after being surprised by it. When I tell people about it, they can't tell how it's spelled from pronunciation alone, and they can't remember it two minutes after the conversation.

I spoke with a US based employee who seemed none too thrilled about the decision, but says this is an effort by Japan's largest e-commerce company (and one of largest worldwide) to build global brand recognition.

More on Rakuten Ichiba here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakuten

Brilliant branding: I had no idea that buy.com still existed, or that anyone still cared. I'm sure I'll have forgotten again within another day, but in the meantime this is more attention than I've paid them in a decade.