BackNew xxx registry has companies worrying over brand poaching
New xxx registry has companies worrying over brand poaching
PremiumIllustration: Shyamal Banerjee / Mint
Neew Delhi: Imagine searching for a corporation, famous brand name or personality on the Internet and being led instead to a pornographic website of that name. That could well happen when the authority that oversees Net domain names approves the .xxx suffix for porn websites.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) voted last week to begin contract negotiations over the coming weeks with the applicant for the porn-dedicated domain name, ICM Registry, making it easier for Internet users to block porn sites.
Domain names are extensions of a website address that indicate the type of content it carries. Some of the most popular domain names are .com, derived from commercial, .org, from organization, and .edu, which indicate education-related portals.
The first quarter of next year is when ICM Registry expects a rush by porn sites to register themselves under the new domain name.
It is also expecting a flurry of applications from firms around the world to block their brand names from being misused by porn sites that seek registration under the .xxx domain name. They will have to pay a price, which ICM Registry says will be a small one, to do that.
ICM Registry will invite popular brands and celebrities to apply during the launch to protect their names from being registered with the .xxx suffix, for a “low one-time fee", ICM Registry chairman Stuart Lawley told Mint.
ICM Registry had in the past applied for the .xxx domain name for adult content, but was turned down.
According to some statistics, 12% of all websites on the Internet are pornographic and the industry generates nearly $5 billion (Rs23,300 crore) in revenue each year.
“There is a possibility that the number of applications for blocking particular names could outnumber the number of actual registrations received by ICM," said a technology expect, who didn’t want to be named. “There are thousands of companies, each with several brands, that would want to block themselves."
He added that blocking names could prove to be a lucrative revenue stream for the company, which plans to charge $60 for registering each site with the suffix .xxx. It is targeting $30 million a year from registrations.
“Companies will have no option but to pay to get their names blocked, if they have to protect their brand’s image," said Jasjit Sawhney, chairman and managing director of Net4 India Ltd, a domain name registration company.
Deepak Kumar, an information and communication technology consultant, said companies that do not take the precautionary step of blocking names will expose themselves to the risk of disputes over brand defamation.
“Any company would want to avoid getting involved in legal battles over defamation issues, which could lead to more negative publicity," he added.
With the growth of the World Wide Web, several Indian companies have put in place special units to cater to their consumers online and also track what is being said about the company on social networking sites such as Twitter.
“Companies are becoming very careful about their online image and this is something that they should definitely worry about," said Rajesh Chharia, president of Internet Service Providers Association of India.
According to Sawhney of Net4India, companies are registering multiple domain names, most of which they never use, just to make sure that others don’t infringe on their brand names.
Some 1.2 million domain names are registered in India, but only 270,000 websites are hosted out of the country; the rest are domain names that are registered, but never used.
A spokesperson for Vijay Mallya-owned United Breweries Ltd (UBL) said the company would not allow its brand names to be misused.
UBL would “do whatever is necessary to maintain the sanctity of their brands and brand names", the spokesperson said.
In the past, the Tata group filed a lawsuit against online travel agency Makemytrip.com for its portal titled Oktatabyebye.com. The World Intellectual Property Organization decided in favour of the Tata group; Makemytrip.com is still contesting the decision.
In a recent case, a Web portal that once belonged to the Indian embassy in Bahrain turned into a porn site after the mission migrated to a new service provider and a new address.
A very famous example overseas is of the White House, the official residence and principal workplace of the US president. Though the official website is hosted at www.whitehouse.gov, there are two more websites by that name— whitehouse.com and whitehouse.org. While the former was created as a platform for political dialogue and later also started hosting adult content, the latter was a parody of former US president George W Bush. Though both the websites had their share of controversies, neither was taken down as the owners cited their right to freedom of expression.
A lawyer with a leading intellectual property rights firm said he expects litigation around domain names to increase.
“Domain registrations happen on a first-come-first-serve basis, and it would be difficult for a company to block all possible combinations that could be made by its associate brands," said the lawyer, who didn’t want to be named.
Policies will have to be tightened to strengthen the role of arbitrators in deciding if there’s a likelihood of confusion or deception when it comes to disputes over domain names, he added.
surabhi.a@livemint.com
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