Those who are leaning towards or who have decided to apply, have been very secretive about it. It’s a fear that an announcement to apply for a .brand will attract competitors. Other reasons are connected to PR, as the brand owner isn’t ready with a PR strategy – telling customers, partners or employees why they are getting a gTLD.

So let’s start with the fear of competition. Your strength in the application phase will in many ways be equal to the strength of your brand. Trademark registrations, present and historic use of your brand name all contribute to the strength of your brand. Announcing that you are applying and then claiming a gTLD will, as I see it, strengthen your brand. Yes, you could end up waking up competitors, but this action could also discourage them from applying. Many brand owners will have competition to the gTLD name they want.

Being proactive with an announcement shows strength. I see very few cases where it would advisable to keep an application secret.
Remember, that even if you apply, others could dispute your application once it is publically announced by ICANN after the first round of applications closes on April 12^th.

Rolf Larsen
CEO and founder of CloudNames

Ifakeyourdomain.com

Let’s say you own Apple.com. It is hard to fight of all of the fake addresses that include the name Apple. Examples are: applesales.com, appsapple.com, me.applelogin.com. Having people with bad intentions faking your online presence or representing your brand is a security hazard. Hackers can capture login IDs, sell air instead of your products, or even copy your products. As if Apple doesn’t have enough trouble fighting fake outlet stores in China…

Security Protocols

There has been a lot of focus on introducing security protocols connected to top-level domains. DNSSEC is one that was introduced many years ago in order to fight hackers hijacking traffic to domains. Even today, many years later .com has not fully deployed DNSSEC protection. The .com Registry needs to consider that it runs half of all Internet domains, and will therefore be very careful introducing anything new that could cause instability to “the Internet”. A .brand Registry doesn’t need these considerations, and will introduce new security protocols as they come. A good comparison is that .com is running Windows95 with its extreme vulnerability to attacks, but .brands will run the latest Windows 8 with all the new protections introduced in the years after.

Second level protection

New gTLD names will be impossible to register on the second level of any new gTLD. This is enforced by ICANNs new protective measures that all Registries will have to implement. In effect, this fights off competitors or unsolicited use of your brand name forever, as long as you keep your .brand.

Look ahead

What lies ahead for top-level domains related to security? I can’t claim to have the answer, but a good guess is that new security protocols are coming. Singular name gTLDs or .brands could be treated different by browsers, with authentic seals or marks that highlight to the user that they are browsing a really secure site. That’s logical to me.

If you’re not that concerned about security, or it’s difficult to understand the content of this article, then I suggest you forward this to the department responsible for security in your company.

Rolf Larsen
CEO and founder of CloudNames

What are the costs if you do not apply for your brand gTLD? First, you need to get ready to fight off identical or similar names when brand competitors apply for their gTLD. That cost will be to lawyers, and will continue as long as ICANN accepts new gTLD applications. This activity alone has the potential to hold the same cost, or be more expensive than taking the gTLD yourself.

Then, consider all the new .com competitors; .global, .shop, .online, .profit, .cool, .anything… There will be many, many new gTLDs where you will need to protect your brand, during sunrise periods and after. The cost of these activities can be enormous. Getting your .brand would have eliminated most of these costs because gTLD names will be impossible to register on the second level of any new gTLD. This is enforced by ICANNs new protective measures that all Registries will have to implement.

All in all, the risk of accumulating costs seems far less if you go for your .brand than if you don’t.

Think ahead. Most brand owners will delete .com from their name in the future. Your brand is stronger and more unique without the .com. It is more authentic, and cannot be faked, with like imfakingyourbrand.com. You will have shorter and better looking URLs and e-mail addresses. Plus the added benefit of getting automatic protection on the second level of all gTLDs.

What are you waiting for? You don’t have much time to think about it.

Rolf Larsen
CEO and founder of CloudNames

Trademark registrations have been important for a long time – to protect brands, products, logo’s etc. How have big brands been used? Billboards, TV, brochures and more. What is important to most brands now? The Internet. It is the online presentation of your company and products. Your brand names are simply the address to anything you. That is why companies worked hard to make sure their brands got on .com, as well as on all the other domains under gTLDs and ccTLDs as well.

If there were something better than .com, wouldn’t you want it?

The opportunity of something better is arriving soon. From January 12 to April 12 2012, you can delete the .com from your brand names if you apply and get approved.

Trademarks protect your brands. So does a .brand gTLD. The reason is that gTLD names will be impossible to register on the second level of any new gTLD. This is enforced by ICANNs new protective measures that all Registries will have to implement. In effect, this fights off competitors to your brand names for all time, as long as you keep your .brand. Isn’t that sounding like a global trademark? I know it isn’t the same as a trademark, but it certainly resembles one in many ways. It is global, and has the potential to last forever. In my opinion, a gTLD is stronger to your brand than anything else you can do.

Not convinced? Think again.

Rolf Larsen
CEO and founder of CloudNames

Consumer-facing brands are experiencing issues with domain names pretending to be a legitimate brand reseller or even pretend to be the brand owner. Consumers are lured into fake online shops, with the sad effect that the brand itself is weakened. The same issues are also hitting B2B brands, but not to the same extent.

From January 12 to April 12 next year, it is possible to register a generic top level domain for your brand. This opens up many possibilities for brand owners. We will see many ways to use these new top level names, with web sites having domains like: www.yourbrand, product.yourbrand, support.yourbrand, investor.yourbrand etc. And e-mail addresses like: peter.sellers@yourbrand.

The entry cost for applying to get a gTLD is US$185,000, which is set by the authority who governs the names and numbers for the Internet, ICANN. That comes in addition to costs for writing the application, technical solution/service to operate the name and maintaining the other responsibilities as set by ICANN. Prepare for a total one time fees in the range of US$250,000-$400,000, and annual running fees in the US$50,000–$150,000 range.

To justify the fairly high cost, there must be significant benefits. Here are some of the benefits that I see for brand owners who own a .brand:

• Stronger brand recognition. Customers and partners will see your brand as stronger, when being exposed with a .brand e-mail or web site. Small weaker brands will not have the opportunity to own a .brand, either for financial reasons, or for trademark reasons.
• Improved security. Phishing problems will not be an issue for .brands, as they have full control of their own top level domain.
• Search engines and browsers. I believe search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and others, in the future will do a lookup to see if the single word searched for is a gTLD with a web behind it. With gTLDs, it’s possible to have a one word web address, like http://yourbrand. So when typing your brand name in the browser, the user will be sent straight to your brands global web site. This feature can be controlled by both web browsers and the search engines.
• Brand protection. ICANN‘s enforced measures to protect brands, will include all new top level domains. Example: A porn company tries to register versace.porn. If Versace is a gTLD .versace, the porn company cannot register the domain versace.porn or versace.anything.
• Short URLs. By deleting .com behind your brand, you have the potential for shorter better-looking URLs for product pages, marketing campaigns etc. Shorter e-mail addresses are also a possibility.
• Is .brand a global trademark? Well, I believe it is. In my limited knowledge about the trademark possibilities of this world, I don’t know anything else that you can do to a brand name that gives you a stronger global trademark. The future is all digital. Your digital content must be connected to your digital brand name. A .brand just makes sense for the future of any strong brand.

There are also the costs to consider if you don’t go for your own .brand. That is, costs related to fighting off competitors who wish to use the same or similar name as your brand name. Spending money on lawyers, and following up with disputes could end up costing you the same.

If you have a strong and valuable brand, then my suggestion is that you hurry up and start the process to make it a .brand.

Rolf Larsen
CEO and founder of CloudNames

There are close to 100 million active domain names are registered under .com. That’s about half of all the 200+ million domains registered across all 280 top level domains and country level domains, (.com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us, .eu, .de, .sp, etc.). The most popular Top Level Domains, in terms of registrations are: .com, .de, .net, .uk, .org, .info, .cn, .nl, .eu and .ru in that order.

Trying to find an available .com name for your new business, or when re-branding your current business name? Forget it, it is taken. Feel free to haggle with domain sharks and early bird registrants, who got those names. But be ready to pay a considerable amount for a good domain name. Good domain names often cost $5,000 to $100,000, sometimes much more.

Oh, you need names for global business you say? Well, then you have start acquiring country specific domain names too. And don´t forget .eu and .asia also.

Wait… There is a new option coming up shortly. From January 12 to April 12 2012, you can send in your application to get your own cloud name. How about web site names like: www.yourcompany, productname.yourcompany or Germany.yourcompany? And e-mail address like: employeename@yourcompany or employeename@france.yourcompany? The possibilities are many when owning your own name space.

I believe that the Internet community will look at these new top level domains as stronger brand names than those who stick with only their .com name. All brand owners should be interested in this opportunity to build a better and stronger brand name for use in this modern world where all communication exposes your company’s domain brand. Some of the companies who already have made a decision for a .brand are not surprisingly, big global brands. But this opportunity is not only for the biggest brands of this planet. However, the cost of acquiring and maintaining these top-level domains are high at the moment, and therefore limiting this opportunity to those who can afford it.

The entry cost for applying is $185,000, which is set by the authority who governs the names and numbers for the Internet, ICANN. That comes in addition to costs for writing the application, technical solution/service to operate the name and maintaining the other responsibilities as set by ICANN. Prepare for a total one time fees in the range of $250,000-$300,000, and annual running fees in the $50,000-$150,000 range.

But even with this price tag, the value of owning a piece of the cloud, where you have full control of your brand can be worth it for many.

Rolf Larsen
CEO and founder of CloudNames