In my last post we talked about the value of introducing new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) to Tribes. We discussed what a Tribe was and how communities of people sharing knowledge and experiences can benefit from new TLDs. In the next three posts from my blog we’ll discuss how brand owners can either benefit from creating a tribal home and/or come together with other tribes for the benefit of their members.

It is important that for this post we keep in mind that all tribes must have a leader or leaders that guide and inspire tribe members. Importantly we must also differentiate between leadership and management. Although managers can be leaders, we must not confuse management for leadership. Management is a job. A job assigned to someone who must complete a certain task within a certain budget or time frame by coordinating or instructing others. Leadership is to instill change, to motivate towards a vision. So how does this all fit into new TLDs and specifically how does this relate to brand owners? Brands are leaders in many respects. They attract tribe members in the form of dedicated customers and fans. Brands instill change amongst people and sometime lead cultural change.

Throughout corporate circles, domain names are seen as intellectual property assets. The protection of intellectual property has traditionally been managed by lawyers, both in-house and by outside counsel. There are two very important words in the previous statement that we should focus on. The first is “protection” and the second is “managed”.

When we talk about protection we think “risk”. For those tasked with protecting a corporations brand/s it is all about risk management. On one side it is “how do we mitigate the risk of our brand infringing on others?” On the other side it is “how do we mitigate the risk from infringement towards us?” Risk is a complex animal and I have NO intention of exploring risk in any great detail here. However. It is fair to say that within corporations and their legal teams, risk is seen (generally) as bad. Success is measured by how much risk is mitigated. Of course all of this needs to be managed within a budget and time frame.

New TLDs are seen as risk for those tasked with protecting digital assets. The general perception is that the risk is considerable and this is natural in the unknown. Brand owners have expressed their concerns in two areas. The first is the risk of another party applying for and being awarded a .brand extension for example Jon Doe winning .coke. The second is the risk of infringement (cybersquatting) in new TLDs for example Jane Doe registering cokesucks.food.

If we consider the above in terms of the risk matrix (see probability of risk X impact scrawl in my original post) we can see that the first concern falls into the High Impact but Low (extremely) Probability sector. Why?

• ICANNs DAG process outlines multiple opportunities available to brand owners to challenge potentially fraudulent applications
• The considerable costs to apply for an extension will discourage most if not all ideas of infringement

The second concern straddles the high to low probability quadrants in the low impact zone. Why?

• Cybersquatters ROI for new TLDs is low as their adoption will be a slow incline. Therefore they are likely to focus on existing incumbents (e.g. .com)
• Most (if not all) prospective registries will provide opportunities for brand owners to secure their rights prior to any general open registration period
• Most (if not all) prospective registries will have some form of restriction on applications that make them prohibitive to cybersquatters
• Most (if not all) prospective registries will have some form of take down/DRP service available to brand owners
• Monitoring tools will mitigate the lifespan of infringements (at least they should)

What we can see is that within new TLDs risk can be managed with implemented policies, tools available or due to be available. The domain name system has seen a number of new extension introductions post .info and .biz. In none have we seen the impact of risk bring down corporations.

You may be asking yourself where leadership comes into this? For this we will need to flip the risk matrix into reward and go from managing risk to leading for reward. Leaders often take risks and see substantial rewards. Dot Brand TLDs require leadership within organizations all of which is capable within legal departments. Instead of looking at impact as negative in the next post we’ll talk about the positive impact to brand owners from new TLDs and how brands can lead innovation and progress. Be warned. If you like the status quo or are very risk adverse you’ll probably not enjoy the next post.