I remember when I worked for a registry (not a registrar) before the first launch of gTLD's. Bizarrely one of the products they were excited to promote was not to register domains under a TLD, but rather, to _block_ them. The idea being that if you wanted to make sure someone else didn't register <company_name>.[sucks, stupid, whatever] you had to pay them (Donuts) to make sure it didn't happen. It felt extortionate.

Apparently it's still a thing. https://kb.centralnicreseller.com/services/brand-protection/...

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amenghra a day ago | parent | next [-]

http://caltechrejects.com/ takes you to https://mit.edu/: you don't need a .sucks TLD to be funny.

	▲	duskwuff a day ago \| parent [-]
		Similarly, someone I know set up http://factoryfloorsweepings.com/ to redirect to AliExpress. :)

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vidarh a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I worked on the .name application, and it was a key thing we were basically required to demonstrate we could do even back in 2000. ICANN was obsessed with protecting trademark holders.

	▲	CalRobert 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They certainly charged a pretty penny for this protection!

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thayne a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It felt extortionate.

Because it is.

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whalesalad a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

the domain industry is completely insane

	▲	macintux a day ago \| parent [-]
		In fairness, the problem they're trying to solve is insanely complex. Not surprising that the solution went off the rails.

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zokier a day ago | parent | prev [-]

gTLDs include .com, .org, .info etc, so they have been around pretty much since the beginning of public dns