SA companies warned as new .sucks domain names stream in
SOUTH African companies have been advised to ensure that the safety of their trade marks is protected through a new generic top-level domain (gTLD) .sucks which would be rolled out soon.
Donvay Wegierski, trade mark specialist at Werksmans Attorneys, said .sucks, which is aimed at creating online space for consumers to share opinions about businesses and brands, created risks for businesses beyond giving unhappy customers a space to share negative opinions.
Cyber-squatters
Wegierski said another danger came from cyber-squatters, a term that describes opportunists who register domain names in bad faith.
He said the cyber-squatters could include competitors, extortionists and opportunists who use misappropriated domains to point to other websites containing illegal or inap- propriate content.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the internet domain naming system, creates new gTLDs to increase competition and choice in the domain name space. Adding to the .coms and .nets and .co.zas, ‘real estate’ with the suffixes .bank and .sucks will soon start appearing on the internet.
The rollout of .bank domains should comfort banks and clients because only banking institutions can apply to register a .bank domain, which would also signify improved security features.
Less so the controversial .sucks domains especially after the sunrise period, a priority period for trademark owners, ended yesterday.
From today, anyone can register a .sucks domain name for a small fee, providing fertile ground for opportunists.
Each of the new gTLDs would have a sunrise period during which trade mark owners with prior verification from the Trade Mark Clearing House, would be given priority in registering domain names.
Third party
Should an unauthorised third party register a domain name, a business would be better equipped to assert its proprietary rights if its trade mark is protected.
After the sunrise period, domain names, even those incorporating registered trade marks, would be available on a first come, first served basis.
A trade mark owner wanting to claim a domain that had already been registered by someone else would have to file a formal complaint, which can be costly.