Protect your business from a reputational nightmare

Businesses and brands across the country are being urged to protect their reputation by purchasing a series of questionable web domain names when they become available in June.

.sucks, .porn and .adult are just some of the domain names that will become available.

Web hosting company 34SP.com has predicted that companies around the world could become the subject of abuse from online trolls who will purchase these unfavourable domain names with the sole aim of carrying out torment.

Pop singer Taylor Swift has already registered taylorswift.porn and taylorswift.sucks, while Microsoft has reserved office.porn and office.adult.

34SP predicts that thousands more registries will be made ahead of the June 1 deadline, when generic domain names are expanded to include more variations.

Daniel Foster, co-founder and technical director of 34SP.com said: “Businesses should do everything in their power to avoid being associated with negative messages – and it’s hard to imagine domain names like .sucks and .porn will foster positivity.

“Clearly some big brands are already taking this seriously by registering controversial names while we are still in a mandated period. However, after June 1 it becomes a free for all, so I’d advise all businesses with even a slight worry about how this could affect their business to swoop up the domains sooner rather than later.

“While some might use domains for good causes, by creating sites such as cancer.sucks for example, I’d predict that many will be swooping up the new names solely for defamatory purposes.”

Anyone who wants to keep an eye on all new domain names being released and applied for can do so on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) website.