PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – You’re a major mainstream brand, just minding your own business, when along comes a new Top-Level Domain extension. Ordinarily, you’d pay this new TLD no mind. Who the hell cares if someone else registers YourBrand.extensionnobodyuses, after all?
Your company owns YourBrand.com, YourBrand.net and a few other, lesser extensions, and if anybody does something untoward with a .whogivesashit name in a way that treads upon your registered marks, you’ll just hammer them in an intellectual property dispute if and when the need arises.
Here’s the thing, though, Mr. Mellow Major-Brand: What if the new TLD in question is composed of a word with which you really don’t want your brand associated, like .fuck, .sucks, .adult or .porn? How much is it worth to you to avoid the establishment of YourBrand.porn, YourBrand.sucks (or — arguably worst of all — YourBrand.ngono)?
Sure, you could just stick with Plan A — ignore the largely irrelevant new extension and deal with any real problems as they arise, case by case — but why run even the slight risk of your brand being cyber-sullied when you can defensively register your way out of the issue relatively cheaply by snaring YourBrand.porn and YourBrand.sucks during a “Sunrise Period?”
If the above sounds a bit like extortion, that’s because it is a bit like extortion. The beauty of this particular racket, however, is it appears to be legally sanctioned extortion.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying the companies offering these new domains and the “Sunrise” periods that go with them are crooks … but I did notice their terms and conditions are written in a Sicilian dialect, and some of the best names available for early registration are listed in a category called “Fell Off The Truck.”
For some reason, I can’t go down to the nearest McDonald’s with a baseball bat, look the manager in the eye and say “Nice cash register you got there, chief. Sure would be a shame if something were to happen to it.” But evidently, it’s A-OK for registrars to charge the guys down at McDonald’s Corporate Central a “reasonable fee” to avoid McDonalds.porn from coming into existence.
On the flip side of the coin, where .sucks is concerned, I personally don’t believe this manner of defensive registration should be permitted in the first place. Sticking with the McDonald’s example, someone who believes McDonald’s sucks (or even just enjoys saying such) has a First Amendment right to say so — and by extension, I believe they have the right to register McDonalds.sucks as a platform from which to speak their mind on the subject of McDonald’s alleged suckiness.
If the hypothetical registrant of McDonalds.sucks were to cross the line into libel and defamation (ask your attorney and he/she will confirm that simply saying “McDonald’s sucks” doesn’t rise to the defamatory), McDonald’s can bring the legal hammer down on them. Until then, I can’t see how McDonald’s should have any greater, or earlier, access to the McDonalds.sucks domain name than any other potential registrant.
Realistically, what is the purpose of the .sucks TLD if not to register names to people who want to put the extension after names of people and things they don’t like? Who on Earth could possibly have better use for Duke.sucks, for example, than current and former students at the University of North Carolina?
(OK, arguably Belle Knox, but aside from her, it’s UNC people all the way.)
Clearly, at least one secondary purpose of .sucks is to siphon off a little dough from the tank of the aforementioned Mr. Major-Brand. If you recall the flurry of defensive registrations when .xxx launched, I think it’s safe to say ICM Registry began counting on the pattern to repeat itself when they set their sights on .adult, .porn and .sex.
Another consideration for the Mr. Major-Brands of the world: Where does it end? In other words, now that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has opened the door to just about any word as a generic TLD, how many times is McDonald’s going to pay the Sunrise Piper so it can call the .blows tune?
Individually, the costs of defensive registration are minimal, akin to nothing from the perspective of a fast food giant or large tech firm. Other entities aren’t so well-capitalized, however, despite being equally concerned about the perception of their brand, from small businesses to small educational institutions. Might the prospect of dozens, or even hundreds, of defensive domain name registrations be too much for their budgets?
The registry operators doubtless would counter all of this by noting they have limited options for preventing cybersquatting and registrations made with malicious intent, and at least the Sunrise periods give brands a chance to head off potential problems at the pass. Why shouldn’t they charge a little something to prevent misuse of domain names?
It’s a valid question, and from the perspective of the registry operators, I suppose it’s a fair one. I’d counter with one of my own: How much, really, does it cost to block the registration of a domain name? (My offhand guess is somewhere between “jack” and “shit.”)
Ultimately, the defensive registration option is something each company, individual and brand has to weigh and evaluate, individually. What people should not do is jump at the defensive registration option reflexively every time some registry operator pumps out a press release promoting their new .whatever.
After all, new TLDs don’t suddenly become relevant simply because the company behind them has declared them relevant. TLDs become relevant only if consumers make them so.
