Keeping it clean: trade mark owners and .xxx domains

In September 2011, the adult industry will get its own internet ‘red light district’ when the new .xxx top-level domains become available for registration.

ICM Registry, which has been approved by ICANN to administer the .xxx TLDs, has announced a pre-registration ‘sunrise’ period, starting on 7 September 2011 and running for 30 days.

In Sunrise A, members of the adult entertainment industry will be able to pre-reserve their desired .xxx domain names.

In Sunrise B, which will run concurrently with Sunrise A, trade mark owners in non-adult industries will be able to pre-emptively block the registration of a .xxx domain name that matches their trade mark.  It’s a defensive measure that ensures that a brand is not associated with explicit or adult-oriented content by removing the associated .xxx domain name from the pool of domain names able to registered.

The important points:

• To pre-emptively block a .xxx domain, trade mark owners must file a Sunrise B application between 7 September 2011 and 7 October 2011.
• A one-time fee is payable for a filing a Sunrise B application (not yet finalised but expected to be around US$200 to US$300.
• The blocked domain name must be the exact match of a nationally registered trade mark – e.g. trademark.xxx can be blocked but not trademark-porn.xxx.
• While Sunrise B is the only way a trade mark owner can pre-emptively opt-out of the .xxx domain space, there will be post-Sunrise mechanisms that trade mark owners can use to protect their brands (in addition to the existing UDRP process).

Sunrise B opens soon and will run for a very limited time.  Contact us to take advantage of this one-time opportunity to pre-emptively keep your valuable brands out of the .xxx neighbourhood.