Protecting your Trademarks in the World of .xxx
FTI Consulting
September 1, 2011
Julia Harrison
Senior Managing Director, Strategic Communications
With the advent of the new sponsored top-level domain (sTLD), trademark owners must act quickly to protect their brands from being associated with the adult entertainment domain .xxx.
Keep your website sexy, just not that sexy.
The organization managing Internet Names and Domains (ICANN) is giving trademark owners just 50 days to protect their brands from becoming associated with .xxx – now is the time to act!
A protective measure ensuring that your trademark cannot appear with a ".xxx" domain has been established. The ICM registry, the company providing the new ".xxx" domain, has set up a registration process with a "Sunrise period" scheduled to last from 7th September – 28th October, during which protective registration can occur. The domain name registration procedure is intended to address potential trademark infringement.
Your individual registrar will set the cost, but it is expected to be between USD $200-300. The fee is one-off and the opt-out is permanent. Once registered, the trademark owner will be notified of any attempts to use the blocked website name. The attempted user will also be notified and thereby be unable to claim lack of notice in any future dispute.