Every business these days needs to have a solid domain name, and the scramble for a unique .com domains has long been a problem for companies looking for their home online. But there are new problems coming for companies as a result of the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLD) like .sucks.
The .sucks domain sales were initially supposed to finish their 'sunrise' period today. Sunrise is when domains are available to brands who own a trademark and wish to protect it from someone registering it. You can bet your bottom dollar that every company from
But it seems that the money clearly hasn't been rolling in quickly enough to the company administering .sucks, Vox Populi Registry, which has today extended the deadline for expensive sunrise registrations until June 19. The company says on its nic.sucks website "we have discovered that far too many intellectual property lawyers, company executives and brand owners were unaware of the registry, the availability of its names or the Trademark Clearinghouse".
The Trademark Clearinghouse or TMCH is the process through which Vox Populi allows registered owners to protect their name. It checks the rights of companies, and if the registrant is so entitled, then the name will be reserved for them.
Some have described the .sucks name debacle as a little more than extortion, a claim which Vox Populi strenuously denies, and even claims is defamatory. ICANN, however, which manages the Domain Name Server root registries, wrote to the FTC and Canada's Office of Consumer Affairs - Vox Populi is a Canadian company - asking if the gTLD was illegal. However, ICANN initially approved the domain, so complaining about it now does seem a little silly.
Even so, companies who must cough up the $2,499 or risk someone else taking their name when the sale opens to the general public might well argue that the whole thing feels like a shakedown. Those who don't want to pay could wait until general sale, and risk someone else snatching the domain, if they do they will "only" pay $249. Small businesses and individuals will likely find this annoying too though.
Someone who can afford to protect her name though, is Taylor Swift who has registered taylorswift.sucks, taylorswift.porn and taylorswift.adult to protect herself from unpleasant sites turning up.
Vox Populi will allow much cheaper, $10, registrations in September for normal users. However this is more of a blocking process, and you won't be able to direct traffic to your own site with this deal, instead that traffic will go to a Vox Populi-run discussion forum.
Of course any brand that feels someone is misusing their trademark could simply sue to regain the name. However that only works if the domain is registered somewhere trademark and copyright law is respected as it is in the US and EU. If, say, you are trying to sue someone in China, things are going to get complicated and expensive very quickly.
Ultimately, it's cheaper to just cough up the $2,499 and keep your brand identity safe. You can see why people feel like it's something of a shakedown.
If you run a business, how do you feel about this? Comment below or Tweet me @IanMorris78 with your thoughts.
