Source: Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
http://blog.ud.com/2011/04/ben-crawford-why-trademark-owners-are-acquiring-their-brand-tlds-defensively/

Ben Crawford: Why Trademark Owners Are Acquiring Their .Brand TLDs "Defensively"

By: Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic

Although few have publicly announced their intentions at this stage, hundreds of forward-looking companies are planning to acquire .brand TLDs corresponding to their trademarks. It is usually the marketing and corporate budgets that will be footing the bill - as .brand TLDs will come into their own as online promotional tools and value-added assets. However, it is typically the fraud prevention and trademark protection executives who make the strongest case for .brands being a must-have investment.

Among the many "defensive" arguments for acquiring .brands, five common themes are:

1. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"

After trademark owners have funded literally years of input into the policy-making for the new TLDs to ensure an orderly roll-out of new domain extensions that respects trademarks, they could not countenance failing to take advantage of the opportunity to secure the .brands for their trademarks. Internet veterans (and their lawyers) still remember the pain and humiliation suffered by companies that failed to register the .com domains for their trademarks in the 1990s, and the resulting high legal and/or acquisition costs required to retrieve them.

2. The opportunity for a crime-free zone

A brand's own TLD represents a secure, online ecosystem that is completely free from concerns of infringement - free from knock-off sites, traffic diversion, cybersquatting, brand abuse, and the myriad of problems trademark owners endure in gTLD and ccTLD domains.

3. Domains that eliminate end-user confusion

Fraud-protection professionals dream of the day they can communicate the simple message: "If it doesn't end in .ourbrand, it's not a genuine 'our brand' website."

4. The power to control all uses of your domain

A .brand domain puts the brand owner in control of all uses of its domain. It can distribute domains to agents, distributors, retailers and other associated entities; and when those relationships end, it can simply revoke the names. This is a vast improvement over the current arrangement, where former agents have been known to keep domains containing the principal's brand and redirect traffic to other websites (the Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure does not apply as the domain was not "registered in bad faith").

5. Mitigating the risk of others blocking your .brand

Another risk is that someone will register a "confusingly similar" TLD this round, and subsequently block you from ever having an opportunity to obtain your .brand. For instance, there is a United Airlines and multiple United Banks, but only one company will get .united. Additionally, if the Georgia Utilities Coordinating Council obtains .GUCC in this round, then Gucci Group will be prevented from obtaining their preferred .gucci domain extension.

With defensive arguments as compelling as these, the business case for obtaining a .brand TLD is often agreed upon before the conversation on making money from the .brand domain is even started.

Ben Crawford is the CEO of global domain name registry CentralNic and its recently-launched new gTLD service, dotBrand Solutions.

get the .brand buzz...


Etisalat secures top-level domain - TradeArabia.com
TradeArabia

CentralNic Powers First New Top-Level Domains Announced by ICANN - CircleId.com
CirlceID

Expert view: Gavin Brown - dotnxt.com
dotNxt

New domain names to break grip of tech giants
The IndependentIOL Scitech

The End of the Dot-Com Era? - cnbc.com
CNBC

Dot-anything Web domain costs big .$$$ - cnn.com
CNN

ICANN's Domain Expansion: Why .Metallica Makes Sense - blog.forbes.com
Forbes

Your .brand gTLD: hopeful registry partners go into marketing overdrive - worldtrademarkreview.com
World Trademark Review

How companies are coping with gTLD applications - managingip.com
Managing Intellectual Property

DotBrand Solutions launches in the Middle East
AME Info ITP.net
Zawya Alrroya
The National Trade Arabia
NewzGlobe
Gulf News
The Next Web
Al Watan The Peninsula

DotBrand Solutions in Germany
Business-on.de IT-Business.de IT Espresso DE Domain Recht

How ICANN's Approval of New Domains Will Change the Web - mashable.com
Mashable

Analysis: New Internet rules will spawn battle for "dots" - reuters.com
Reuters
Yahoo! News OnIslam CNBC MSNBC Arabian Business

Forget .com, here's .coke - money.cnn.com
CNN Money

Experts clash on benefits of owning and managing .brand domains - v3.co.uk
V3

Site Name Broker Preparing for Suffix Explosion
LA Business Journal

Hundreds of dot-brand domains predicted - theregister.com
TheRegister

New '.music' web domain worries recording industry - politico.com
Politico

Marketers debate usefulness of ICANN's new domain names - btobonline.com
BtoB Online

Drinks firms could profit from internet expansion - just-drinks.com
Just-Drinks

ICANN Approves Custom Generic Top Level Domains - eweek.com
eWeek

ICANN approves top level domain name changes - upi.com
UPI

ICANN Approves Generic Top Level Domains - enterprisenetworkingplanet.com
Enterprisenetworkingplanet.com

Here come the domains - bizmology.com
Bizmology.com

Goodbye .Com, Hello .Anything - portfolio.com
Portfolio.com

ICANN Vanity Domains: A Caution for Midmarket Firms - internetevolution.com
InternetEvolution

Top-Level Domains Will Help Web Growth & Reach - yousaytoo.com
YouSayToo

.Branding: It's the End of the .com World as We Know It - brandchannel.com
BrandChannel

Dot-Brand: Get those applications ready - mediapost.com
Marketing Daily

Money Radio 1510 Interviews Ben Crawford - New gTLDs: A New Era for Brands on the Internet
Money Radio

Are You Ready for .anything? Generic Internet Domains on the Way - pcmag.com
PCMAG.COM

Ben Crawford: Why Trademark Owners Are Acquiring Their .Brand TLDs "Defensively" - blog.ud.com
UD.COM

A New Era for Internet Domains: Why .XXX Is Just the Beginning - mashable.com
Mashable

Squawk On The Street: Has The Internet Out Grown .Com? - thedomains.com
theDomains

The Big Bang in Domain Names Is Coming - The CMO Site
the CMO site

Here Come the .Brand Top Level Domain Names - Domain Name Wire
Domain Name Wire

Introducing dot Brand Solutions - Launching Brands into a New Digital Landscape

Please direct PR enquiries to our London Headquarters on +44 20 33 88 0600 or via email at info@dotbrandsolutions.com


next: DotBrand Solutions' events