Corporate news

AdultBlock, a new protection service

For several days, a new service for protecting your name as an asset has been available at Gandi: AdultBlock. AdultBlock is a service that lets you block new domain name registrations linked to a brand name or trademark in four domains associated with adult entertainment: .xxx, .adult, .porn, and .sex.

How does AdultBlock work?

When AdultBlock is active on one or more terms, the whois will indicate that the domain has been blocked, while also hiding the name of the person or entity who is blocking that name. These domain names will not be registered, but just appear as unavailable. No third party will be able to access any information about the brand name or trademark in question, nor will they be able to register with the domain name.

Domain names in .xxx, .adult, .porn, and .sex experience a high degree of cybersquatting and preventing these practices is exactly why AdultBlock was created.

What subscription options are available for AdultBlock

AdultBlock Service

The base AdultBlock Service blocks a single term, that is, your brand name and premium domains.

Example:

Blocking the term “gandicorporate” would block the domains gandicorporate.xxx, gandicorporate.adult, gandicorporate.porn, and gandicorporate.sex.

AdultBlock+

The AdultBlock+ service blocks the exact term plus anything registeredwith TMCH (Trademark Clearinghouse), the global database of trademarks created by ICANN to aide with reserving trademarked terms in new top-level domains (TLDs) as well as all automatic variations and premium domains.

Example:

Blocking the terms “gandicorporate,” “gnadicorporate,” and “gandi-corporate” would block the domains gandicorporate.xxx, gandicorporate.adult, gandicorporate.porn, gandicorporate.sex, gnadicorporate.xxx, gnadicorporate.adult, gnadicorporate.porn, gnadicorporate.sex, gandi-corporate.xxx, gandi-corporate.adult, gandi-corporate.porn, and gandi-corporate.sex.

Either of these options can be implemented for 1, 3, 5, or 10 years. Once the service is active on one or more terms, the whois will indicate that the domain is blocked by AdultBlock while hiding all information about the purchaser of the AdultBlock service.

Who is eligible for AdultBlock

Owners of trademarks registered with TMCH as well as participants in the Sunrise B release of .xxx that took place in 2011.

What Gandi Corporate Services recommends

The main appeal of AdultBlock is of course in the area of brand protection. The cost can be high but is still advantageous in the long run thanks to blocking all variations and homoglyphs, letting you easily protect yourself from cybersquatting of a pornographic nature without having to pay to register all the domain names covered.

On that note, it’s worth pointing out that if a domain name had previously been registered and becomes available again, AdultBlock or AdultBlock+ will automatically cover it as soon as it is deleted.

Until December 31, 2019, a launch promotion is underway on AdultBlock+ for 10 years! Contact your Gandi Corporate Services account representative or corporatecontact@gandi.net.