Hybrid Domainer

Bloomberg: " Harvard.xxx a Brand Cautionary Tale as Web Adds New Names"

By: Raymond Hackney

Bloomberg is out with a piece today about how .xxx is a look into how corporations and other brands will have to protect themselves when new gtlds are available.

From the article:

Harvard University paid as much as $299 to register the last time the World Wide Web’s global overseer added a domain name to familiar ones including .com and .net. Rather than seeking a new opportunity, it signed up to keep harvard.xxx from being used as a porn site.

As the Internet’s first major expansion since 2004 adds suffixes including .fail and .sex to the existing 22 names to the right of the dot, brand owners such as Coca-Cola Co. (KO) and Ford Motor Co. (F) may be similarly forced to pay up to prevent cybersquatting on a massive scale, said Daniel Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, a trade group whose members wield 10,000 brands.

The article goes into brand protection,trademark violations, and things such as scam opportunities. The writer did speak to Stuart Lawley from ICM Registry/.XXX and Josh Bourne from FairWinds Partners who laid out examples of which extensions brands will have to be defensive about.

Read the whole article here

 

Will Anyone Care About The Classification of an Extension in the Future ?

By: RH

In a world of 1000 new tlds is it safe to say that all extensions will be looked at as one specification ?

The public has no idea between a gtld, cctld, repurposed cctld or a sponsored gtld.

There was a good blog post by Morgan Linton on MorganLinton.com (which I am a contributing writer) titled Why I Think Some Of The Hottest New gTLDs Aren’t New To Us. Morgan mentioned .me, .co and .tv which of course are all country codes. Some say don't classify them as new gtlds, others think that it is just the pedantic ramblings of a fool to be worried about the distinction.

Some will point out there is still a risk that the country who was delegated those two letters, can change the rules of the game at any time. I have heard that for years while writing about and consulting in .tv.

I would say that there is some risk and it would be foolish to say there is zero like some have said. Can any small repurposed cc tld take the chance of pissing off the Internet world at large.

In the future this may all be blended into one distinction, its an extension. I certainly don't have the answer, what do you think on the topic ? Will all extensions be looked at the same 5 years from now ?

" I can't wait to register web.site"

By: RH

I was out about a week ago with a couple guys who are not in the domaining industry but work in tech. They were both aware of the new gtld rollout and surprisingly excited. I asked what was it that they were excited about ?

The first guy said that he could finally get a great domain cheap, " I can't wait to register web.site" I said thanks for saying that when I was not drinking my water, I did not want to spit it out or come out my nose from laughter. He looked at me puzzled and asked, "What are you talking about ?"

I said that even though there will be new extensions the game would still be played by the old rules. That if there is a .site approved, names like web are not going to be able to be hand regged for $10. He asked me why ? I explained that new tlds will be consulted by domaining consultants who would be showing them how to maximize their return on their best available keywords.

The second guy said this was supposed to change all that. I explained that ICANN is the one getting rich. Sure there will be new choices, but that 90% of all new extensions open to the public are going to have the good names auctioned off.

They both thought I was nuts. This was not what the new gtlds are about. The first guy said this was an effort to take back the Internet from as he put it "The .com whores" "No longer would startups have to pay big money to bring their ideas to life, and regular folk could get their first or last name."

I then asked them if they did programming or website design for free ? The second guy explained that what he does requires talent, and there is no talent required in buying and selling domains. 

At this point I realized talking about domains was futile. Just as it will likely be futile attempting to register a domain like web.site for $10.

I have nothing against the new tlds, change on the Internet is always happening. I do think people should not be disillusioned to thinking that the new tlds will bring about great keywords for $10 in most of the highly sought after new tlds.