The AdultBlock and Adultblock+ services, which protect trademarks on four domain endings related to the adult entertainment industry — .xxx, .adult, .porn, and .sex — are now opening eligibility to a larger group of brands.
What are the new AdultBlock eligibility rules?
Up to now, subscibing to AdultBlock and AdultBlock+ blocking services was exclusively available for:
- trademarks registered with ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH)
- .xxx domain names registered during the Sunrise B phase in 2011
As of May 12, 2021, the ICM registry has extended this eligibility in order to allow trademarks to be more widely protected in the face of cybersquatting risks on .xxx, .adult, .porn, and .sex. Now, the following are also eligible:
- trademarks registered with national or regional authorities but not registered with TMCH
- trademarks not registered by any trademark protection office but recognized by law or by a court ruling
- names of companies
- names of celebrities
Why subscribe to AdultBlock or AdultBlock+?
The AdultBlock and AdultBlock+ blocking services protect your brand from the risk of cybersquatting particularly common on the four domain endings with a pornographic character: .xxx, .adult, .porn, and .sex.
The benefit of this service is that it guarantees anonymity: domain names are not registered but are made unregisterable. The identity of the owner of the service is not published in the Whois, it’s simply noted that the owner subscribes to AdultBlock or AdultBlock+. That way, you maintain control over your brand’s image.
The degree of protection differs according to the service subscribed to:
- AdultBlock blocks exact matches to the trademark protected and premium domain names. For example, blocking the term “domain,” would protect the domain names domain.xxx, domain.adult, domain.porn, and .domain.sex from being registered.
- AdultBlock+ blocks exact matches to the trademark protected as well as all logos and marks stemming from the trademark, but also premium domains, homoglyphs, and typographic variations. Taking our “domain” example again, that would protect the domains in this illustration:
For more information on these two blocking services, please feel free to contact your Account Representative or to email us at corporatecontact@gandi.net.
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