Recent Posts
- Melbourne IT to relaunch, return to roots, after $3.4 million acquisition
- Registrars CAN charge for Whois, ICANN grudgingly admits
- New new gTLD registry in town as Rostam buys UNR
- Stop me if you’ve heard this…
- Verisign growth slows with post-Covid blues
- CentralNic gobbles up another registrar
- Blind auditions underway for ICANN’s supreme court
- Right-wing YouTube bought rumble.com from founder for $477,077
- You can’t appeal a UDRP appeal, ICANN Ombudsman says
- Unstoppable Domains stops over 116,000 domains as alt-root TLD goes dark
- CentralNic expects to blow past revenue estimates
- [Guest Post] Hey ICANN: Reporters are not the enemy
- Is ICANN toothless in the face of DNS abuse?
- ICANN to mull bulk registration ban
- .au adds 100,000 names in days after 2LD floodgates open
- Registry launches Ukrainian domains for Russian-occupied region
- DNSSEC claims another ccTLD victim
- Taliban seizing domains to silence journalists
- McCarthy wins Nominet director election
- Nominet “gaslighting” members over fees, candidate claims
- ICANN dodges bullet as American elected to ITU top job
- Identity Digital publishes treasure trove of abuse data
- Paraguay to chair the GAC
- Nominet may owe its members millions, top lawyer says
- ICANN approves ccTLD-killer policy
- .br tops five million names
- ICANN returning to Puerto Rico
- Ukrainians urged to “de-Russify” their domains
- .au passes four million names as 2LDs surge
- .com and .net are the drag factor on domain industry growth
- Nominet gets new CFO
- It’s ICANN versus the blockchain in Kuala Lumpur
- ICANN to “stand up” to Russia at the ITU
- Surprise new chair for ICANN announced
- PIR will launch .giving next month with unusual landrush rules
- Last-minute bombshell in Nominet election — it may be ILLEGAL
- ICANN finished year $24 million ahead but loses $29 million on the markets
- CentralNic picks up marketing firm for up to $19 million
- Whois Disclosure System to cost up to $3.3 million, run for one year
- ICANN director’s registry CEO job up for grabs
- MarkMonitor to join Newfold in $300 million deal
- New ICANN contracts chart the death throes of Whois
- Kiwi Farms domain lands at Epik
- CentralNic passes on abandoned dot-brand
- Cloudflare blocks anti-trans site for “emergency threat to human life”
- GoCompare makes a big bet on a new gTLD
- Epik replaces Monster with younger clone
- Alt-root .eth is getting very big, very fast
- ZADNA under fire over “heavy-handed” new rules
- Identity Digital to release 5,000 reserved names
- Millions of .cn domains disappear
- ICANN throws out prostitution complaint
- CentralNic revenue almost doubles
- Drug dealer sells blunt.com for $165,000
- Did a sexy Russian spy nerf the o.com auction?
- Cancelled misogynist Andrew Tate moves domain to (drumroll)… Epik!
- Google reveals launch dates for two new gTLDs
- Ducos a shoo-in for GNSO Council chair
- NameSilo reports revenue up 33%
- Adoption light with four weeks to .au’s 2LD deadline
- It’s hustings season at Nominet
- ICANN rushes mystery directors onto board in apparent bylaws breach
- ICANN staffing up for next new gTLD round
- Radix premium revenue hits $3.8 million in first half
- GoDaddy shutters Twitter accounts after MMX deal
- nickel.com sells for a hell of a lot more than a nickel
- German motoring club dot-brand crashes out
- Verisign to crack down on Chinese domains
- Whois Disclosure System likely over a year away
- Belgium slashes its ICANN funding in “mission creep” protest
- Diversity takes a hit as NomCom replaces two ICANN directors with newcomers
- RDNH loser files second appeal
- Group crowdfunding crypto to apply to ICANN for blockchain gTLD
- Buyer “phasing out” domain “bought for $2.2 million”
- ShortDot drops premium fees on millions of domains
- Tucows’ domains business stagnates again in Q2
- Malaysia relaxes travel restrictions ahead of ICANN 75
- GMO to sell Unstoppable’s crypto domains
- More rules, but cozier ICANN 75 expected
- India offers dollar regs to celebrate independence
- auDA updates on 2LD .au sales
- At $15 million, nfts.com becomes second-biggest domain sale ever
- Now Nokia scraps a dot-brand
- InternetNZ appoints new CEO
- Looks like XYZ bought another gTLD
- Bugatti dumps dot-brand under new owners
- In pictures: from tuk-tuks to cheese wheels, every ICANN national stereotype 2016-2022
- Did ICANN pay for most meeting attendees to show up in The Hague?
- Verisign announces ANOTHER price increase as regs slide
- CentralNic signs Greenland deal
- Early “dot-brand” adopter wants to scrap its gTLD
- Verisign to mandate 2FA for .com registrars
- Unstoppable valued at over $1 billion after huge new investment
- ICANN staffer to referee closed generics fight
- Covid vaccine maker takes RDNH loss to ICANN board
- Guy asks ICANN to shut down prostitution site
- No smoking! Rules laid down as .kids reveals launch dates
- Nominet sold security unit for a dollar after blowing $23.5 million
- CentralNic revenue almost doubles
- Feds warn of Covid risk from “dark” Whois
- ICANN names NomCom chairs
- ICANN’s top brass get pay raises
- New gTLD prep work delayed until December
- New gTLDs WILL be delayed by Whois work
- ICANN backtracks on legal waiver for ICANN 75
- Community tells ICANN to walk and chew gum at the same time
- Five things I learned from UK prime minister candidates’ domain names
- Universal unacceptance? ICANN lets XYZ dump languages from UNR gTLDs
- ICANN terminates these three deadbeat registrars
- .xyz kicks France out of the top 10 TLDs — Verisign
- ICANN puts blockchain on the agenda for good
- New gTLD in trouble as largest registrar gets suspended
- ICANN picks comms firm for new gTLDs outreach
- Donuts goes with bland, forgettable, for new company name [rant]
- Broker says it will sue after DNS abuse sting operation
- Unstoppable targets another city gTLD with free domains
- Dynadot takes down its own web site after apparent breach
- The slow crawl to closed generics at ICANN 74
- Controversial Chinese firm among two newly revealed UNR gTLD buyers
- Over 900 people show up for ICANN 74
- Verisign and Afilias spar over .web delays
- Hamburg selected for next year’s ICANN AGM
- Amazon governments not playing ball with Amazon’s .amazon
- High fives, or elbows only? ICANN 74 intros traffic light system for socializing
- NetBeacon goes live for DNS abuse reporting
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.