Domain Name Registrations

The IT guru in your company comes barging into your office, excited about something only a tech person can get excited about. Once you are able to sift through their technical mumble jumble, you understand that the gist of the message is this: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) has made new generic top level domain names (“gTLDs”) available to the public. We’re all familiar with the .com, .org or .net type of domain names. ICANN stated that it will be releasing ones that end with .aero, .biz, coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro. What does this mean for your company? It means that premium website addresses that are memorable for your clients that used to lead to a totally different company that thought of generating their website first, may soon be available to you with a new extension instead of the .com and other pre-existing ones. But with that, the Federal Trade Commission wants you to be aware of fraudulent businesses that are soliciting guarantees to those names by faxing you an advertisement. Those faxes may be promising you preferential treatment in the registration process in exchange for a fee.