Dot-sucks sucks: ICANN urged to kill “shakedown”

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Dot-sucks sucks: ICANN urged to kill “shakedown”:

Under the “sunrise” rollout, which dot-sucks registry Vox Populi is obliged to carry out, trademark holders are given first rights to buy domains with their trademarks in. Typically, this costs companies the usual registration fee plus an additional sunrise charge that ranges from $15 to several hundred dollars.

Dot-sucks however intend to charge $2,500 for such names and has also put a list of similar names under a “premium name” program that would see companies have to pay $2,500 per year to get hold of their brand names, even if they don’t opt to register it during the special sunrise period. What’s more, the company intends to charge ordinary consumers just $9.95 for a dot-sucks domain.

Shameful.