Recent Posts
- 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!
Momentous’ .sucks bid “about creating dialogue”
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.