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Investing in .ad domains may be risky

Kevin Murphy, September 26, 2024, Domain Registries

Domain investors may shoulder additional risk when they register domains in the relaunching .ad TLD, judging by the registry’s new cybersquatting policy.

Andorra Telecom, which will make .ad names generally available globally October 22, has signed up with WIPO to implement an adapted version of the UDRP that is a lot less friendly to domainers.

The new adDRP specifically calls out domaining as an example of “bad faith”, something a complainant must prove if they want to seize a domain matching their trademark. Panels can find bad faith if they see:

circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to another person for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name

The adDRP also tweaks the usual three-pronged cybersquatting test found in UDRP to make it easier for complainants to get a win, by lowering the evidential bar on registrants’ rights.

Instead of having to prove the registrant has “no rights or legitimate interests” to the domain, adDRP complainants merely need to “declare” that, “to the best of the Complainant’s knowledge”, the registrant has no rights or legitimate interests.

The adDRP also broadens the types of intellectual property rights complainants must have from registered trademarks to, for example, famous personal names and geographical names related to Andorra.

Andorra Telecom announced its relaunch, assisted by Fundació puntCAT and CORE Association, a few months ago. GA pricing is expected to be €15 ($16) a year.

While Andorra is among the world’s smallest nations, its ccTLD is of course an abbreviation of “advertisement” or “advertising” in English and therefore may have broader appeal.

The registry recently launched an English language version of its web site and a bunch of registrars serving the Anglophone market are already signed up.

The plural gTLD version, .ads, belongs to Google but has not yet launched.

.ad domains to go global soon

Kevin Murphy, May 1, 2024, Domain Registries

Andorra’s ccTLD is to become the latest potential domain hack for the Anglophone world, when the local registry massively liberalizes its registration policies later this year.

.ad domains are due to become available to any registrant globally starting in October, via an as-yet-unpublished list of approved registrars. General availability wholesale prices appear to be €15 ($16) a year.

Currently, the domains are only available to Andorrans manually going through the government trademark office, but it seems the registry, Andorra Telecom, has moved to a standardized EPP back-end with all the usual business logic that entails.

Before GA, starting May 22, there will be a gradual ramp-up period that seems to combine elements of typical sunrise and landrush periods. Foreign trademark owners will be able to apply during this period.

Interestingly, it seems that you may also be able to register a .ad that matches your domain in another TLD, without a matching trademark, during this period.

.ad is of course an abbreviation of “advertisement” in English, which may make it attractive to registrants outside Andorra.

The attractiveness is perhaps enhanced by the fact the the plural, .ads, is one of many gTLDs that Google owns but has so far refused to launch.

Andorra is a tiny nation, with a population about the same as Grimsby, nestled in the mountains between France and Spain. The national language is Catalan, as is the new registry web site.