With the 2012 round of new top level domain names, new services were introduced to help brand owners protect their marks. Some registries, for instance, offer blocking services that enable brand holders to block their brands and variants across all extensions.
The services offered by these registries are helpful, but they are sold piecemeal. Many smaller registries do not provide one at all, as their offerings vary from registry to registry.
NamesCon will launch NameBlock AS this week, which aims to change that.
A .global extension was built and sold by Rolf Larsen, who founded the service. As a cofounder of IQ Global, he also provides brand protection services.
In his vision, Larsen says registries and registrars will gain new revenue sources by making it easier for brand owners to block problematic domains.
Through NameBlock, registries (including ones with non-new TLDs) can offer registrars and other partners their own blocking solutions. Instead of purchasing a block for each registry individually, brand owners can aggregate them.
Getting many registries on board will be crucial to NameBlock’s success. Because of the company’s domain industry background and registries’ connections, easier domain blocking should be possible in the near future.