November 25, 2013 at 10:52New domains for brands: make.believe
As you know, a number of large companies from various industries have applied for registration of their own domain zones under the New gTLD program. Among them are Microsoft, Google, Canon, Motorola and many others. The number of companies that plan to register their domain in one of hundreds of other new zones is generally not measurable.
ICANN believes that these companies, using sites in the new domain zones to promote their products and services, will actively contribute to the development and promotion of the New gTLD program for a wide range of network users. Among the minuses, as a rule, they name only selling expenses and some difficulties with protecting the brand from cybersquatters.
But recently one more nuance has surfaced that can introduce a lot of confusion among users.
At a conference of domain investors in New Jersey, one of the speakers talked about how vivid and easy to remember domain names will become when they will almost completely coincide with the brand name. She cited the logo of a local food transportation company as an example:
This logo could be an excellent confirmation of her words, but the .foods domain does not appear on New gTLD applications. There is only an application for the domain .food, but this company has nothing to do with it.
This error is by no means accidental. Many companies in the names of their trademarks, logos, slogans and advertisements use the separation point between words or another symbol with the same purpose. This gives the impression of a similar name to a site on the Internet.
More examples:
The Company Lab, a company providing startup support services:
Of course, it has a domain in the .co zone, but it does not pretend to be a .lab domain.
Here is another element of advertising from her site, also with dots:
The company also has a registered brand called CO.STARTERS.
If you imagine that hundreds of working new domain zones have already appeared on the network, there will be confusion in the heads of users: seeing logos and advertisements with dots, they will take them for the addresses of sites on the Internet and ... will not find them.
It is interesting that this feature is not taken into account even by companies working in the domain industry, for example, the owner of an alternative AnyExtension domain name system:
Of course, we cannot ignore, perhaps the most famous example of using a separation point from Sony:
And an even more striking example is the coincidence of a brand and logo with an existing domain name that Sony does not own: Move.me is a PlayStation extension that allows control the gameplay with gestures.
You can pick up more than a dozen such examples. There is only one conclusion - the addresses of sites in the new domain zones will be confused with the names of brands containing a dot. Probably, in order to avoid such cases, companies will either have to register the corresponding domains, or remove the dot from the names of their brands.
ICANN believes that these companies, using sites in the new domain zones to promote their products and services, will actively contribute to the development and promotion of the New gTLD program for a wide range of network users. Among the minuses, as a rule, they name only selling expenses and some difficulties with protecting the brand from cybersquatters.
But recently one more nuance has surfaced that can introduce a lot of confusion among users.
At a conference of domain investors in New Jersey, one of the speakers talked about how vivid and easy to remember domain names will become when they will almost completely coincide with the brand name. She cited the logo of a local food transportation company as an example:
This logo could be an excellent confirmation of her words, but the .foods domain does not appear on New gTLD applications. There is only an application for the domain .food, but this company has nothing to do with it.
This error is by no means accidental. Many companies in the names of their trademarks, logos, slogans and advertisements use the separation point between words or another symbol with the same purpose. This gives the impression of a similar name to a site on the Internet.
More examples:
The Company Lab, a company providing startup support services:
Of course, it has a domain in the .co zone, but it does not pretend to be a .lab domain.
Here is another element of advertising from her site, also with dots:
The company also has a registered brand called CO.STARTERS.
If you imagine that hundreds of working new domain zones have already appeared on the network, there will be confusion in the heads of users: seeing logos and advertisements with dots, they will take them for the addresses of sites on the Internet and ... will not find them.
It is interesting that this feature is not taken into account even by companies working in the domain industry, for example, the owner of an alternative AnyExtension domain name system:
Of course, we cannot ignore, perhaps the most famous example of using a separation point from Sony:
And an even more striking example is the coincidence of a brand and logo with an existing domain name that Sony does not own: Move.me is a PlayStation extension that allows control the gameplay with gestures.
You can pick up more than a dozen such examples. There is only one conclusion - the addresses of sites in the new domain zones will be confused with the names of brands containing a dot. Probably, in order to avoid such cases, companies will either have to register the corresponding domains, or remove the dot from the names of their brands.