Registrars can now block people from registering tens of thousands of domain names that look like, are spelling variations of, or otherwise infringe on brand names.
  • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
    ·
    9 months ago

    It should be illegal to name your dogshit fraud brand after random words in the dictionary but no, this shit is what they go after.

    Can't have a guy register his website as McDonkalds, end of the world.

  • save_vs_death [they/them]
    ·
    9 months ago

    so, uh, stupid question, but what if i just used a registrar that didn't give a shit, and isn't signed up for global block, wouldn't it completely defeat the purpose?

    • CubitOom@infosec.pub
      ·
      9 months ago

      Yes although a company can still sue for trademark infringement and send cease and desist orders. Also the tld might take your website away.

      Some registrars might also think it's more profitable (or just easier) to charge for the extra domains that a company might want to buy.

  • IceWallowCum [he/him]
    ·
    9 months ago

    Business idea: specialize in opening companies with ramdom ass words as names, wait 10 years then search site domains to sue and harvest money from. With enough dedication, we can get every word to be trademarked!

  • CubitOom@infosec.pub
    ·
    9 months ago

    This is terrible even from a capitalist perspective as stated in the article

    More interestingly though, trademark protection generally applies to goods and services in a particular class and that too in specific jurisdictions thereby complicating matters.

    Unless the goal is just to make sure no one usurps the big companies that are able to pay > $5000 a month for the service.

    There is something to be said about the security aspect in regards to typo-squatting. But the better solution there is to let the browser or a browser extension give a warning the way it does for sites without https certs. Possibly by comparing a list of similar names to a database of traffic rankings and then warning that app1e.com is not apple.com are you sure you want to proceed. but even then it's going to ensure more traffic goes to the big companies and probably won't stop the more common use of typosquating which is for email scams.

    It should be said that the same security problem exists with phone numbers too.