.sucks domains “will not be $25k”
Vox Populi Registry, which won the auction for the .sucks new gTLD last week, says its Sunrise prices will not be $25,000 a year after all.
The company has further denied that its general availability prices will be $300 a year.
As DI reported earlier today, the Momentous affiliate beat off competition from Donuts and Top Level Spectrum to win the .sucks contention set.
We reported it was likely to be controversial due to the high prices Vox Populi had previously revealed.
But CEO John Berard, while neither confirming or denying that Vox Populi won the auction, told DI tonight that the company has had a rethink of its pricing strategy.
“We are considering something much more in line with current pricing practices,” he said.
While Berard would not discuss numbers, current pricing practices among new gTLDs tend to be in the $10 to $150 range for GA names and a few hundred for Sunrise registrations.
That’s a far cry from the $25,000 a year Sunrise fee the registry hopeful aired last December.
Berard added that .sucks under Vox Populi would have additional rights protection mechanisms beyond the mandatory set all new gTLDs must carry, but he could not yet provide specifics.
My criticisms of the company’s .sucks have been concerned entirely with its pricing, which I thought would bring the industry into disrepute. If its proposed fees have been lowered, that can only be a good thing.
The only winners, are the ones who lost the auction.
Kevin,
Thanks for the additional post.
Berard
Great string with real opportunity to make a positive difference, at low prices. Congrats to the winners!
A foolhardy domain for foolhardy registrants. Why would anyone want that when you can simply add Sucks, Sux or bites to the end of a conventional .com? Also, it will be easy to filter out if in the domain name. Not going to sell. Don’t gtld people see that the this crap is a waste of time? The only gtld I have ever seen that actually makes any sense is Gtld.Sucks
Yep. Congrats to the winners indeed.
I still don’t know how this one got approved. A generic domain for the sole purpose of abusing others. At least at 25k it would not be used for cyber bullying… Make them available at £10 each and it won’t be long before ICANN will be embarrassed.
I expect that the additional rights protection comes at a hefty fee and will be a core part of their business model.
This type of useless New gTLDs were designed to get money from trademark holders and people with bad reputation. That’s it.
$300 per Year?
This is “protection money” from companies like Microsoft, Shell etc..
Not a legitimate possibility to make a gripesite against a company.
Acceptable would be a end user price of ~8 to ~15 Dollar per year.
But only private persons or a NGO should are authorized to register the domain.
Is known that the site has been registered by a scarecrow for a company (also for a opponent company), they should be withdrawn.
It is also useful: The page MUST be used against the company.