Recent Posts
- Is the .co rebid biased toward Afilias? Yeah, kinda
- Amazon governments vow revenge for “illegal and unjust” ICANN decision on .amazon
- SaveDotOrg to protest outside ICANN HQ. #lol
- Ten years ago I predicted Oscar winners wanted a .movie gTLD. Was I right?
- ICANN gets a new European chief
- New CEO to step into the lion’s den at auDA
- Secrets of the .org deal revealed, but much info remains private
- Registrar terminated after what looks like domain hijacking
- NamesCon publishes full agenda for debut Austin conference
- .gay prices and availability revealed as registry promises to give 20% of revenue to charity
- Now .org critics actually want to take over the registry, blocking billion-dollar sale
- Verisign pays ICANN $20 million and gets to raise .com prices again
- ICANN predicts shrinkage in new gTLD sector
- ASO uses super powers to demand ICANN turn over .org buyout docs
- Now PIR rubbishes .org “downtime” claims
- DI Leaders Roundtable #4 — Big predictions for 2020
- Afilias denies .org will go down post-acquisition
- Palestine to release all one-character .ps domains, at a price
- PIR thinks 20-year domain regs are a good idea
- Amazon beats South America! Dot-brand contracts now signed
- Q3 industry growth driven by .tk, .com and .icu
- ICANN throws out second .org appeal, so URS stays
- Warning (or threat?) prices must go up or .org will suffer DAYS of downtime
- Russian company approved as gTLD escrow provider
- Guy gets 14 years for trying to steal a domain with a gun
- GoDaddy girls often make more money than the men
- Non-coms want .org’s future carved in stone
- Kamel’s deputy gets promoted at ICANN
- ICANN delays approval of .org acquisition
- AlpNames died months ago. Why is it still the “most-abused” registrar?
- Ethos promises to keep .org for many many many many years
- Amid .org controversy, Cerf predicts the death of all domains
- #SaveDotOrg to hold public web conference tomorrow with Ethos execs
- As pricey .new launches, Google reveals first set of big-name users including rapper Drake
- Three more dot-brands fizzle out. Total now 69, dudes
- Are ISOC’s claims about .org’s history bogus?
- Criminal .uk suspensions down this year
- Governments kill off another gTLD bid
- Four big developments in the .org pricing scandal
- DI Leaders Roundtable #3 — What did you think of ICANN 66?
- Petition launched to fight .org deal
- ICANN board meets to consider PIR acquisition TODAY
- XYZ buys dormant gTLD from “pyramid scheme” operator
- I attempt to answer ICA’s questions about the “terrible blunder” .org acquisition
- Selling off PIR, did ISOC just throw .org registrants under a bus?
- Rival dot-brand bidders in settlement talks, seek auction delay
- ICANN going back to Puerto Rico for a third time
- Montreal airport thinks DI is porn
- DI Leaders Roundtable #2 — Should we kill off “Whois”?
- Former NTIA chief Redl now working for Amazon
- Neustar’s .co contract up for grabs
- US official Heineman joins GoDaddy
- Web.com got pwned
- Surprise! ICANN throws out complaints about .org price caps
- Somber mood as ICANN 66 opens in Montreal
- America has Amazon’s back in gTLD fight at ICANN 66
- New (kinda) geo-TLD rules laid out at ICANN 66
- Emoji domains get a 😟 after broad study
- Industry veteran Jay Daley tapped to lead IETF
- Verisign likely to get its billion-dollar .com pricing windfall
- ICANN enters talks to kill off Whois for good
- Form an orderly queue: New Zealand wants a new back-end
- Brexit hell: .eu suspension plan put on hold
- DI Leaders Roundtable #1 — How many new gTLDs will be applied for next time around?
- Now you don’t have to live in the EU to register a .eu domain, but there’s a catch
- Spam is not our problem, major domain firms say ahead of ICANN 66
- Crunch time, again, for Whois access policy
- Google quietly launches .new domains sunrise
- After .org price outrage, ICANN says it has NOT scrapped public comments
- Hindu god smites Chrysler gTLD
- Top ICANN advisor Tarek Kamel dies at 57
- Three big changes could be coming to .uk
- Introducing… the DI Leaders Roundtable
- After killing the cows, what does the new Tucows logo remind you of?
- Radix acquires another gTLD
- .whoswho survives!
- Correction: the 10 most-used dot-brands
- Nominet raises .uk prices
- Registrar suspended over dodgy transfers
- Mediocre .vote gTLD drops restrictions
- ICANN’s babysitting fund goes live
- Claims auDA boss quit after he was busted for “falsified” law degree
- .bond domains could cost a grand each
- PIR’s “new” .org domain is just temporary. Help it pick another new one!
- MMX switches porn TLDs from Afilias to Uniregistry
- Argentina will use a lottery to decide 2LD landrush
- Sixty gTLD registries not monitoring security threats
- ICANN must do more to fight internet security threats [Guest Post]
- Bumper batch of dot-brands off themselves for Friday 13th
- .org price cap complaints more like “spam” says Ombudsman
- Botterman is new ICANN chair
- Another victory for Amazon as ICANN rejects Colombian appeal
- Kafka turns in grave as ICANN crowbars “useless” Greek TLD into the root
- Sorry, you still can’t sue ICANN, two-faced .africa bidder told
- Why you should never let a pizza joint apply for your billion-dollar dot-brand
- More than 1,000 new gTLDs a year? Sure!
- Paranoid ICANN opens another root server in China
- A third of the top TLDs are shrinking
- These two ccTLDs drove two thirds of all domain growth in Q2
- .blog registry handover did NOT go smoothly
- Donuts slashes prices on a million domains
- .tech gTLD startups “raise $2 billion”
- Whois killer deadline has passed. Did most registrars miss it?
- CIRA replaces CORE as emergency backup registry
- The Amazon is burning. Is this good news for .amazon?
- China’s MySpace trainwreck sells its gTLD
- Second-level .au names delayed
- ICANN names new directors, replaces Facebook exec
- After getting acquired, bank scraps its dot-brand
- Porn-block retail prices revealed. Wow.
- Registrars could be held liable for US gun violence
- Three-letter .com owned by hospital “hijacked”
- “We’re Irish!” claim Brits as .eu shrinks yet again
- Mystery .vu registry revealed
- Berkens says new gTLDs mostly suck but geos suck hardest
- .gay gets rooted
- Neustar takes control of two new gTLDs
- Epik will sponsor 8chan’s domain, but will not host its site
- EFF becomes second to appeal new .org contract
- CentralNic to pay $3.4 million for iwantmyname
- Google has big, innovative plans for .new
- Amazon and Google have been BEATEN by a non-profit in the fight for .kids
- After more racist shootings, take one guess which registrar 8chan just switched to
- Radix releases huge amount of premium domain data
- ICANN dumps the “Whois” in new Whois tool
Momentous’ .sucks bid “about creating dialogue”
Kevin Murphy,
May 31, 2012, 17:07:03 (UTC),
Domain Registries
The CEO of Momentous’ .sucks new gTLD applicant reckons smart brands will embrace the cheeky concept.
I chatted to John Berard, CEO of Momentous subsidiary Vox Populi Registry, this afternoon for a piece in The Register, and he reckons .sucks isn’t the money-grubbing scam many people will say it is.
“If some people think this is just a way to get registration money out of corporations, then those people are either unaware or are being short-sighted about their marketing effectiveness,” he said.
Berard believes smart companies nowadays are embracing social media interactions as a way to improve their marketing, and that .sucks will be a way to facilitate that.
That said, the policies governing .sucks are still not clear.
Momentous is also applying for .design, .rip and .style.
Kevin,
Thanks for putting DotSucks at the top of your list of newsworthy new gTLD applications.
I will grant you it may seem “cheeky,” but the rise of social media, the history of criticism occupying some dangerous Internet backwater and the importance of engagement make it all pretty sensible.
Specific provenance, light of day, dialog may just increase customer loyalty and improve corporate responsiveness. Win-win, eh?
As for the governing policies, we will be assiduous in protecting brands, vigilant in adherence to our terms and conditions and diligent in a take-down process that supports both.
Cheers,
John Berard
John, perhaps I’m a bit confused. Is your goal to sell domains like Dell.sucks to Dell? Or to individuals that want to gripe about Dell?
If the former, wouldn’t something like .feedback make more sense?
Andrew,
My hope is to create a dialog no matter who registers the name, but there will be trademarks deference built into the system.
As for the use of “sucks” over the more prosaic “feedback,” well, I think that is the reason. We need to get people’s attention so as to create the hub we intend. And cutting through the clutter of daily life requires taking some liberties with the language.
The test will be to see if consumers come to believe their comments are being heard and if companies come to rely on the registry to give them access to real points-of-view.
Watch this space!
Cheers,
John Berard
Same John Berard who represents the BC on the GNSO Council? If so, that seems relevant to me and an odd omission, IMHO.
It’s the same John Berard. I didn’t think his role on the Council was especially relevant here. Plenty of applicants and people representing applicants are on the Council.