NEW gTLDs
entered the digital market, in a programme that is due to last until mid-2016. While the headline numbers for some of these new gTLDs have been impressive, the take-up from brand owners has been relatively modest to date. However, there is no turning back and no doubt that these new suffi xes will revolutionise the internet as we know it.
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Why have brand owners been relatively slow to engage with the programme? A simple overview of the fi rst 50 available gTLDs may shed some light on why brands’ pulses aren’t racing yet. T e .guru, .bike, .plumbing and .singles strings were all released in the fi rst week of the programme, followed by gTLDs such as .kitchen, .limo and .farm in subsequent weeks.
T ese new suffi xes embody one of the objectives laid down by ICANN for the expansion of the internet: bringing more choice and access to domain names. For a trademark or digital marketing team, however, their relevance is less clear.
A few new gTLDs can be classed as successes, a trend that should be viewed with some interest by the corporate market. T ere have been more than 37,000 .email registrations to date, 25,000 in .company and nearly 20,000 in .technology. T e appetite for the geographic-related gTLDs is also starting to become clear, with .berlin still the second most registered gTLD, attracting more than 135,000 registrations, .tokyo having garnered 17,000 registrations a week aſt er launching, and eagerly- awaited sunrise numbers due for .london and .nyc.
With more than 270 million ‘old’ domain names registered, the new gTLD programme has a long way to go before it can be deemed as disruptive to the status quo. We have seen numbers released by Verisign that show the slowdown in .com registrations and renewals. T at isn’t a surprise, as brand owners are making forward-thinking decisions about replacing some of these possibly unessential registrations with
new gTLD
registrations. But what needs to happen for the gTLD programme to get signifi cant traction with consumers and brand owners alike?
Critical mass
T e author Malcolm Gladwell is famous for analysing consumer and corporate behaviour related to specifi c events. In his book, T e Tipping Point: How Little T ings Can Make a Big Diff erence, published in 2000, Gladwell states: “T e success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social giſt s.”
www.trademarksandbrandsonline.com
s this issue of TBO goes to press it is nearly seven months since the fi rst new generic top-level domain (gTLD)
He analysed the moment when critical mass is reached and then leads to a viral eff ect. His examples, including the fall in crime in New York City in the 1990s, were interesting and logical, and his views and analysis on the new gTLD programme would be very valuable indeed.
What is needed for the programme to reach that tipping point? A few forward-thinking trademark owners and some clarity from the major search engines on how they plan to handle new gTLDs would be a good starting point.
With about 600 of the new gTLDs due to be controlled by trademark and brand owners, it may be down to these organisations to drive the knowledge of the programme to a wider audience. T ese brands have a huge fi rst-mover advantage but that power has to come with some responsibility to ensure that consumers (and other businesses) gain an awareness of what benefi ts the new gTLDs can deliver.
While not all of the .brands that applied for their own slice of the internet would consider themselves ‘visionaries’, even those that acted with a defensive strategy in mind could be regarded as having an obligation to spread the message.
For organisations that took the leap of faith in using their new .brand, the rewards could be immense. Communities of interest will develop based around both generic and branded gTLDs.
For example, long gone are the days when domestic banking around the world was restricted to a few traditional organisations. Take a walk down your typical high street in the UK today and you will fi nd banks that have their roots in Asia, America and Europe. T e potential that the .bank gTLD could off er all organisations in the banking sector, if marketed well, could defi ne the industry for years to come.
Banks have moved their traditional business models online, where technology increases effi ciency and reduces costs with every pound spent. But it is the increasing risk of fraud that keeps the board of directors of these institutions awake at night.
With a restricted, community, online space that the .bank gTLD could off er, consumers would be able to trust any domain name that ended in ‘.bank’. Some banks, such as Barclays, HSBC and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, have taken it a step further by applying to run their own .brand. While the amount of fraud that these organisations experience is not public information, the move to a new gTLD should eliminate any of the existing scams.
The dark web
Unfortunately, it is not all smoked salmon and champagne for trademark owners. T e new
gTLD programme magnifi es the threats that companies have faced online in the last decade. T e dark corners of
Without a clear strategy on taking advantage of the opportunities the programme off ers as well as mitigating the threats, companies could be putting their brands at risk.
Cybersquatting is an all-too-frequent and
unnecessary evil of the domain name world, but it is preventable. A number of rights protection mechanisms introduced by the new gTLD programme off er cost-eff ective armour against the digital dragons. T e Deloitte-managed Trademark Clearinghouse and the Domains Protected Marks List (DPML), run by Donuts Inc, off er very simple and cost eff ective solutions for brand owners to stop any unwanted attention on their digital assets and should be the fi rst step in a domain name protection strategy in the new gTLD world.
T e mid-term report on the programme is “must try harder”. Without any awareness campaigns being driven by ICANN, it is going to be in the laps of new gTLD applicants to drive the message in their respective communities. Only then can we start to judge the success of the new dawn of the internet.
Stuart Fuller is director of communications at NetNames Ltd. He can be contacted at:
stuart.fuller@netnames.com
the internet have grown
darker as technology has reduced the cost and increased the sophistication of
the threats.
Stuart Fuller
Trademarks & Brands Online Volume 3, Issue 3 39
Nomad Soul /
Shutterstock.com
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