Is .sucks only for Vacuum Cleaner companies? Or Extortion?
A New Internet Domain: Extortion Or Free Speech?
Excerpt:
A rash of new Web domain suffixes have popped up in recent years to supplement .com or .net — terms such as .bargains or .dating. Several new suffixes seem to invite negative feedback. There's .gripe and .fail. There's even .wtf — a colorful variation on "what the heck." And soon, there will be .sucks. J. Scott Evans says his objection isn't that it sounds whiny. It's the price. Evans is associate general counsel at Adobe Systems, and for a trademark owner like his to claim Adobe.sucks would cost $2,500 a year. That's more than a hundred times the typical fee. "I basically think it's extortion," Evans says. Adobe purchased relevant suffixes like .photo, Evans says, but it will not buy defensively to protect the brand. "We are not going to participate in any sort of extortion scheme," he says. Someone else may register the name. But, Evans says, there's a remedy: "I told my people the best way not to get included is not to suck," he says.Kevin Spacey, Apple buy up .sucks
Excerpt:
What do Kevin Spacey, Apple products, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Justin's nut butter, and Yahoo all have in common? They are all newly registered ".sucks" domains. The newly created ".sucks" domains are currently open to trademark owners, but will become available to the general public on June 1, according to Vox Populi Registry, which manages the generic top-level domain. Domain Incite, a news blog focused on the domain name market, reported Friday that Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey was one of the first ".sucks" buyers, according to Vox Populi's running ticker of recent registrations. Other recent registrations on Monday morning's list included "yahoo.sucks," "soulcycle.sucks," "internetexplorer.sucks," and bofa.sucks." Domains for Apple's iPod, Apple Watch, and iMac also scrolled across the ticker.Comment: My domain: jrpeet.com
Internet naming group asks FTC to investigate .sucks controversy:
ReplyDeleteThe Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit that sets policies for the global domain name system, said in a letter to the FTC and Canada's Office of Consumer Affairs that companies have complained the system is "predatory, exploitive and coercive."
New .sucks domain stirs up storm over free speech:
ReplyDeletehe new Internet domain .sucks has stirred up a firestorm over free online speech and the potential for extortion against companies and individuals.
The company operating this new domain claims it is "designed to help consumers find their voices and allow companies to find the value in criticism."
But critics see it as a shakedown scheme designed to force companies and individuals to fork over cash to keep an unfavorable or offensive website offline.
According to media reports, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other large companies have bought up the domains by exercising their trademark priority rights, presumably with no intent to use them. Music star Taylor Swift reportedly did the same thing.
What has fueled concerns is that the domain registrar, a Canadian-based company called Vox Populi, is charging $2,500 for the website names -- far more than a typical website registration of $10 to $25 -- before the names are opened to the public on June 1.
The Intellectual Property Constituency, an advisory group to the global Internet domain regulator, complained last month that the "exorbitant sums" are effectively a "shakedown scheme" to get money from companies and others.