GoDaddy’s GlobalBlock supports blockchain names
GoDaddy’s Brand Safety Alliance has finally released the list of TLDs supported by its new GlobalBlock brand protection service, and it’s notable for including a couple dozen extensions that aren’t real TLDs at all.
Formally announcing its launch today, the company said GlobalBlock will initially allow trademark owners and others to block their marks and variants in about 600 “extensions” and published the list on its web site.
The term “extension”, as opposed to “TLD”, is important, as the headline number seems to count zones where names are registerable at the third level — so .bar.pro and .cpa.pro and .com.cx and .net.cx, for examples, are individually counted.
I count a total of 457 TLDs on the currently published list, of which 27 are distinct ccTLDs.
But I also about 20 strings that aren’t real TLDs. As well as pseudo-gTLD .it.com, a lot of supported extensions appear to on blockchain naming systems such as Unstoppable Domains (proving, once again, that Unstoppable chose entirely the wrong brand for its service).
The blockchain TLDs currently listed are: .altimist, .anime, .binanceus, .bitcoin, .blockchain, .crypto, .dao, .go, .hi, .klever, .kresus, .manga, .nft, .polygon, .pudgy, .unstoppable, .wallet, .x and .zil.
About 270 of the real gTLDs on the list belong to Identity Digital, with GoDaddy Registry accounting for about 35.
Google Registry has 28 gTLDs on the list, seven of which aren’t even publicly available yet, such as .search and .map. This in either incredibly cheeky — selling blocks in TLDs in which cybersquatting is literally impossible — or a sign that Google plans to release more of its dormant gTLD inventory soon.
Other registries with multi-TLD representation on the list include Global Registry Services, GMO Registry, Internet Naming Co, ZACR and Nominet (though, while .wales and .cymru are currently listed, .uk is not).
Notable by their absence are portfolio registries Radix, XYZ and ShortDot.
UPDATE: This story was updated several hours after publication to remove the reference to Handshake. Unstoppable Domains is the only blockchain naming system to so far be in the GlobalBlock ecosystem.
GoDaddy project unveils brand-blocking calculator
GlobalBlock, an ambitious brand-protection initiative led by GoDaddy, has revealed a blocking calculator on its web site, showing potential clients how many thousands of domains they can expect to block for a single annual fee.
The calculator takes the user’s trademark as input (you can enter any string) and tells them how many domains are eligible to be blocked with the GlobalBlock service, which includes exact-match names in hundreds of TLDs, and GlobalBlock+, which includes variants.
The first value seems to top out at 511 right now, suggesting there are currently 511 TLDs live in the system.
The GlobalBlock+ result seems to depend to a large extent on how many potentially confusing homographs (such as ASCII letters that look like Cyrillic or Greek letters) your trademark contains. The string “facebook” shows 58,765 blocks, for example, while “google” returns 63,875.
GlobalBlock, a service of the GoDaddy-owned Brand Safety Alliance, had previously said it expects to launch this week with over 650 supported TLDs. Several gTLD registries are still waiting for ICANN approval to participate via the Registry Service Evaluation Process.
What’s not currently available is pricing. GlobalBlock is selling via “agents”, usually registrars, and while some registrars have already started marketing the service with press releases or blog posts, nobody seems to have put a dollar value on the service yet.
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