GoDaddy (the world's largest domain registrar) and Identity Digital (formerly Donuts, the registry for the largest number of new gTLDs) have slightly delayed the launch of their joint GlobalBlock project. It was supposed to launch last week, but now, according to the Domain Incite, the launch has been postponed to January next year.
GlobalBlock is a service intended for copyright holders that allows you to block the registration of domain names whose names coincide with the names of protected trademarks or contain their names. It is based on GoDaddy's AdultBlock and Identity Digital's DPML. The service covers over 650 generic top-level domains and national domain zones (the latter circumstance is explained by the fact that the Nominet registry, which is the technical operator of many national domains, participates in the project). The GlobalBlock service is certainly beneficial for copyright holders, since the cost of a subscription to it is significantly cheaper than the protective registration of their brand names in hundreds of domain zones. In addition, the premium version of the GlobalBlock+ service also allows you to block domain names that not only coincide with trademark names, but also are similar in spelling. Finally, Priority Autocatch prevents infringing domain names from being re-registered if the previous registrant did not renew their registration in a timely manner.
The initiators of the project will not lose either. Domain Incite estimates that the same company, GoDaddy, earns millions of dollars a year from its AdultBlock service. And while for registries with a small number of domain zones under their management, participation in such blocking programs does not promise any tangible profits, for large players like Identity Digital this is a very serious source of income.
