OT- Registering TLD's for countries?

[Chris Mauricio]

Sorry it's OT, but I needed additional input from IT centric people...

My COO came to me about registering our domain name in every major country 
based on GDP.  As in:   ourproduct.it, ourproduct.ca, ourproduct.au etc. etc. 
about 37 countries. I hinted that maybe it was overkill,  that in some cases it could require actually 
having a business presence in some of those countries ( we don't.. yet ) 
besides, the first thing everyone seems to try is... .com.  I understand the 
concept of locking down the trademark, but where do you stop? 

He wants to secure them for local distributers, I suggested a simple reirect 
from ourproduct.com/it  and ourproduct.com/ca  to the local distributers...


He wants me to .."run it by some of your IT friends.." and get a consensus....

So- opinions?

thanks...

C.