Brand Protection .Sucks

Brand protection agencies/registrars are having a blast with the new .sucks extension. They have the freedom to spend their client’s brand protection budget and they spend it as fast as they can. They spent almost $3,000,000 USD in one day buying .sucks domains in sunrise and general availability.

This is a budget they have convinced their clients to increase because of the “evil” New gTLDs. These fear spreading companies that somehow they have the highest domain name registration prices and they also tell their clients not to reveal their price list or they will close their accounts. You know who you are.

The level of reckless spending and total disregard to common sense has spiked in the past few days with the sunrise period of the new .sucks extension and the general availability.

And I bet that most of their customers don’t even know how their money is being spent or how many holes the whole protection plan has.

Spending $2,500 in sunrise to buy a .sucks domain name while the equivalent .com is still available for $10 is beyond stupid. It is a “I just want to spend your money on my registrar services” statement by the brand protection agencies that should only lead to a single response by their clients: “you are fired”.

Any company not firing their agency for doing this simply don’t care about their company’s funds and its stockholders. I bet these are the people being paid a million a year just to travel around the world and/or spend the company’s money on work expenses.

There are hundreds of options to get a “sucks” domain name that is available for registration today. Especially when the equivalent exact match “sucks” .com domain name is available to register for $10.

And the people that want to build a “sucks” website are not really prepared to pay $250 to buy a domain name to protest for a company overcharging them like $20. And it is not like they are making an investment for a site that will be up for many years to come. Most “sucks” websites go silent after a few weeks and then the domains expire and drop.

And do you know what happens when you make registrations like a .sucks domain for $2,500? Like .sucks did and will continue to do. Do you? You bring unnecessary attention to your brand. (look here and here) And attention will result in domain name registrations in .com by ignorant people that think they will sell these worthless domains to the respective brands for $2,500 or maybe for as little as $500.

Anyone wants to bet how many “sucks” .com domain names were registered in the past few weeks?

And I don’t blame the .Sucks registry for their prices. They are allowed by ICANN to do whatever they want. ICANN installed no rules on New gTLDs and then they went ahead and accused the .Sucks registry of selling domains too expensive. But such hypocrisy is to be expected by such an organization that spends money left and right and does not serve the domain name community in the slightest.

By the way the domain name BrandProtection.Sucks is available to register for just $250.