ICANN launches brand database for trademarks

Net address regulator ICANN has launched a database to allow businesses to register their brands, ahead of the release of a raft of new domain names.

It is hoped the Trade Mark Clearing House (TMCH) will mitigate concerns about cyber-squatting and trademark infringement. Nearly 2,000 new suffixes, known as generic top-level domains (gTLD), will be introduced later this year.

Businesses fear that new addresses will compromise their brands. Suffixes such as .bet, .web. .news will become available from May as alternatives to the well-known .com and .org.

Icann’s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) TMCH will offer companies priority registration for domain names that match their brands during what is known as the “sunrise” period before the names are offered to the general public.

Once this period of 30 days is over, names will be available for anyone, but the TMCH will notify brands when anyone registers a domain that matches their trademarks. Read more