The Landrush registration period for .XXX domains opened today (November 8, 2011). If you did not get the .XXX domains you wanted during Sunrise A because you did not have a registered trademark or qualify as a grandfathered site, now is the time to order the .XXX names you want.

The Details:

• The Landrush Period is open only to members of the sponsored community or companies that are conducting business within the sponsored community
• Landrush is not first come, first served.  At the end of the eighteen day Landrush period, any .XXX domain names with a single applicant will be automatically registered to the requestor.  Any .XXX domain names with more than one applicant will be placed into a closed auction between the parties who submitted a Landrush order 
• You can register domains as keywords related to your business—and many great .XXX domains are still available
• Landrush ends on November 25, 2011

To submit your .XXX order request log in to the Safenames IDP today. If you have any questions about .XXX, contact your Safenames account manager or call Safenames customer service at +44-1-908-200022 or +1-703-574-5313.

The Russian registry has decided to begin accepting new registration requests for COM.RU domains after suspending operations for COM.RU over the past several years. The re-launch of COM.RU will begin on October 25, 2011 with an Open Registration Period and any business or individual may place a registration request at that time. If you were unable to get your brand in .RU before, or if you have a new request, don’t miss this opportunity to get the COM.RU that you want.

Safenames is currently accepting pre-orders for this country code domain extension (ccTLD) and will submit the orders on October 25th, 2011. Here is what you need to know:

• There are no local presence or trademark requirements and there are no restrictions on COM.RU domains
• Open registration orders will be fulfilled by the registry on a first-come, first-serve basis
• If there is more than one application for the same domain, the name will go to auction and you will be notified about the auction process
• The registration fees are non-refundable during the pre-order registration phase

If you have any questions about COM.RU, contact your Safenames account manager or call Safenames customer service at +44-1-908-200022 or +1-703-574-5313. Existing customers can order within their Safenames account.

The practice of cyber squatting has been an issue for brands since the early days of domain registration when the “Internic” provisioned domains.  For the first seven or eight years during the web and domain registration boom, names were “held” (a.k.a., squatted) by infringers who were just waiting for an offer from the trademark holder to buy the domain name.  Today, the methods used to monetize trademarked domains are very sophisticated and continually refined to enable domain name pirates and their supporting “ecosystem” to generate the maximum revenue on misdirected web traffic. 

In the early 2000’s, displaying pay-per-click advertising (PPC) sites, also known as traffic monetization sites, was one of the first alternatives to “squatting” on a name.  Pay-per-click ad sites offered cybersquatters and typosquatters an easy and immediate way to offset domain registration costs.  Then, when the money started rolling in, the cyber criminals realized they could amass significant wealth with little or no effort.  And, there was really no risk to deter them from registering trademarked domains. There are now hundreds of traffic monetization companies that domain pirates can use and the sites that display on their syndicated ad networks have become very robust. These cyber pirates, and the complex systems they’ve built, do not appear to be going away anytime soon, as the demand to find better and smarter forms of turning views on the web into dollars is increasing year-over-year. 

While a web visitor may know that that they did not arrive on the intended web site of a particular brand, do they really re-type the domain name into the browser or do they just click on a link that looks like it will get them where they want to go?  The ads pages are often very enticing and most users will try the one-click route to get to their desired destination, which means they’re not re-typing the domain into the browser and  you’re potentially either losing a customer or paying more for one than you are aware.  If you’re the person searching and you see a 50% discount on the product or service that you want, but it’s from a different brand, do you at least take a look at the ‘alternate’ offer? Research suggests that most people do.  The sites deliver ads that can be very brand specific (ads of the brand holder, competitors and related industries) and they can serve geo targeted ads based on the visitor’s IP address to make the ad content extremely relevant and enticing.  One of the newer forms of web site monetization is to build “developed sites” in a variety of vertical markets that appear to be authentic sites and include relevant content that is surrounded or imbedded with ads.  The infringing domains are carefully pointed to the site of your vertical market with your SEM ads and the ads of your competitors. 

So how is this practice of domain name piracy harmful to your brand?  Let’s look at the DirectTV example. The domain name dirrectv.com, which is a pretty good typo of the real site www.directtv.com, currently resolves to a pay per click ad page. You have to wonder how much web traffic DirecTV is losing each time a user mistypes their domain after watching a DirecTV™ commercial?  In the best case scenario, DirecTV is paying $0.50, $1.00 or even more for a customer who already wanted to visit their site at no cost. In the worst case scenario, the consumer intending to go to the site ends up on the parked page, clicks the ad for Dish Network™ and orders a subscription there instead. An immediate lost sale, but what is the lifetime value of each lost opportunity? 

Ironically, the companies footing the bill to make these domain name pirates wealthy are the very companies that are being hurt by this practice—it may be happening to you.  Protecting your brands IS the same thing as protecting your revenue. 

To learn more about how your company can develop an online brand enforcement strategy and stop the loss of revenue at the hands of domain name pirates, you can contact us at Safenames US, +1.703.574.5313 and nasales@safenames.net, or the Safenames UK at +44 1908 200022 and emeasales@safenames.net.

The expansion of Internationalized Domain Names or IDNs among the country code registries continues.  It is now possible to register Cyrillic IDNs in the .COM.UA and .KIEV.UA domain extensions.  Domains may only contain Cyrillic symbols, digits (0-9) or a hyphen/dash (-). The domain name must include at least one Cyrillic symbol that is visually different from Latin symbols. 

The Ukrainian IDNs are in the land rush phase until 19 Dec 19 2010. Domain can be registered by anyone, however, registrations during this phase require a 10 year minimum term.

 On 21 December 2010, general registration begins and anyone can register IDN.COM.UA  or IDN.KIEV.UA with registration terms ranging from 1 year to 10 years.

The Trademark Sunrise for the reserved one (1) and two (2) letter domain names for co.uk, .me.uk .org.uk will begin on Wednesday, 1 December 2010 and continues until 17 January 2011.  Applications during the Sunrise are being processed by Nominet, the UK registry. 

This is an opportunity for UK trademark holders to secure highly memorable short domain names that match their trademarks. For example,  AA.co.uk, A.org.uk and 4.me.uk are possible if your trademark exactly matches the domain name.  The trademark for all registration requests during the Sunrise period will be validated by the registry’s validation agent, an independent IP law firm.

A full list of domains available for release and any exceptions are detailed here: http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrants/aboutdomainnames/reserved/releaselist/

This phase consists of a two stage application process.

Stage 1
Trademark rights holders have until midday (GMT) on 17 January 2011 to apply for a domain that matches their trademark via a Nominet registrar.

Stage 2
Applicants will have their IP rights checked by CMS Cameron McKenna, the validation agent Nominet will be using for this process. Applicants will need to provide evidence of using the trademark in the UK prior to 1 January 2008. The deadline for applying to CMS Cameron McKenna to have IP rights validated is midday (GMT) on 31 January 2011.

Multiple applications: At each stage, where there are two or more qualifying applicants for a domain name, an open auction process will be used to decide the successful applicant, with any profits going to Nominet Trust.

The Sunrise registration fee for reserved short domains is $300 for 2 years. This includes the Nic fees of $100 if successful.  If unsuccessful in registering the domain, the Nic fee will be refunded. If you have any questions regarding the .UK Registered Rights Sunrise process, please contact your Safenames account manager.

You may also contact Safenames UK office at +44 1908 200022 and emeasales@safenames.net, or Safenames US office at +1.703.574.5313 and nasales@safenames.net.

If you are not a registered trade mark holder who meets these criteria you cannot apply at this stage. You will need to apply either in the subsequent Unregistered Rights Sunrise phase or the landrush phase.

The General Availability period for the ccTLD, .CO (Colombia), begins today, 20th July at 7pm GMT. General Availability names will be registered on a first come first served basis and all .CO names will be available for registration with the exception of the registry’s reserved list and those domain designated for a premium name auction.

After more than 26,000 domains were fulfilled during the Trademark Sunrise and the projected tens of thousands more that will be provisioned as part of the Land Rush Period, it is expected that General Availability for .CO could be the largest single day for a ccTLD registration since .EU launched in 2005. The second level .CO will be marketed by the registry as an “open-ccTLD” and just like a generic domain (gTLD) .CO will be made available globally to any business or individual who wishes to register a name without any restrictions or local contact requirements.