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Dispute over ‘confusing’ new gTLD company names

Kevin Murphy, July 19, 2012, Domain Services

Is this the first “confusing similarity” fight to emerge from ICANN’s new gTLD program?
Two new UK outfits are involved in a dispute about their very similar company names, it has emerged.
TLD Registry Services seems to have come first. It’s an offshoot of Island Networks, the registry manager for the Channel Islands country-code TLDs .gg and .je.
According to co-founder Nigel Roberts, the company plans to offer registry services to existing TLDs using the CoCCA platform and has already made headway with a few potential clients.
TLD Registrar Services, on the other hand, is affiliated with CentralNic, the relatively successful new gTLD registry back-end provider.
Judging by its placeholder web site, this company plans to offer white-label registrar services to new gTLD operators such as dot-brands.
Roberts is irked that CentralNic picked a name for its company so similar to his own, particularly given that “registry” and “registrar” are often used interchangeably outside of the domain industry.
“We’ve recently asked the Secretary of State to look into how this situation came to pass,” he said. “It’s less than ideal for both parties. We are sure they are just as keen not to be confused with us, as we are keen not to be confused with them.”
Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic and chairman of TLD Registrar Services, said he was not aware of a dispute over the name.
“One of our employees was approached at Prague by someone from a company called TLD Registry Services – a company nobody in our business had ever heard of before,” he said.
“They expressed concern that our company names are too similar to each others’. We will consider their concerns and our options in due course.”
With both companies barely out of stealth mode, it’s probably something of a squall in a teacup at the moment, but it does highlight how tricky it can be to find a descriptive company name in this industry.
We could of course just be looking at a profound lack of imagination here, and I’m just as guilty as the rest.
DI is published by TLD Research Ltd, which appears directly after TLD Registrar Services Ltd and TLD Registry Services LLP in the UK’s Companies House register of companies.