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NEWS ANALYSIS – ONLINE BRANDINGwww.euroslot-online.comLots in a nameA glut of new Internet domains will present opportunities and pose challengesfor amusement and gaming operators, writes Barnaby PageKeeping control of your brand online is about toget a whole lot tougher.The snappily-titled Internet Corporation forAssigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), theorganisation which oversees the Net’s system ofdomain names, has begun the process which willpotentially lead to the use of hundreds moretop-level domains – the bits at the very end of Webaddresses.Currently these are limited to about 20 genericendings, most famously .com but also including .net,.gov and so on, along with the two-letter codessuch as .uk and .de which pertain to particularcountries.But now ICANN is opening the door to many,many more of the former, descriptive type,technically known as generic top-level domains(gTLDs). It spent the first few months of this yearaccepting applications for new gTLDs, and receivednearly 2000 of them before the end-of-Maydeadline.Each application carried a $185,000 fee, whichshows how valuable the successful establishment ofa new gTLD is expected to be: its owner will haverights to all possible domain names with that ending.For example, if someone applied for and won .burger,they’d control www.mcdonalds.burger,www.recipes.burger, www.relish.burger, and so adinfinitum. The proud new owners wouldn’t have tooperate all these Websites themselves, of course;most likely they’d rent out the individual domains toother companies, just as happens with .com and itsfellows today.There will soon bemany more potentialdomain names thatcould exploit your brandwithout authorisationSo this presents both threats and opportunities forgaming operators. Opportunities, because the newgTLDs may enable strengthening and fine-tuning ofbranding, for example by differentiatingwww.mybrand.poker from www.mybrand.bingo(assuming, of course, that the winners of the .pokerand .bingo gTLDs are willing to do business withyou); and threats, because there will now be manymore potential domain names that could exploit yourbrand without authorisation.Says Mark Owen, an intellectual property specialistat London law firm Harbottle & Lewis: “Whilepotentially very profitable for some people andopening up a range of possibilities for new services,the whole exercise has been viewed with trepidationby many brand owners. Already faced with the costsof having to defend their brand against unauthoriseduses online, they will now have hundreds of new usesto object to.”Gaming was certainly a significant theme in theapplications, with five received for .game, four eachfor .casino, .poker, .bet and .play, and two apiece for.bingo and .juegos as well as single applications for.games and .vegas. Doubtless some off thesuccessful applicants have social or video gaming inmind, but others clearly are contemplating wagerbasedgaming, though oddly there were no proposalsfor .gaming or .gamble. (The most sought-after ofall, by the way, were .app, .home and .inc.)Now the hard bit starts. As Campbell Newell,partner at law firm Marks & Clerk, puts it: “Lookingat the list, it can be seen that there are severaldomain names such as .app and .book with multiplereputable applicants, none of which have aparticularly unique claim to the phrase in question. Itwill be interesting to see how these disputes playout.”To handle these conflicting applications, ICANNhas developed a procedure that boils down to “sort itout between yourselves, and if you can’t, the gTLDgoes up for auction”. And thanks to this and otherelements of the elaborate process, it’s unlikely thatthe first of the new gTLDs will be up and runningbefore next spring.The intervening period, therefore, is one thatoperators – whether or not they’re already activeonline – should use to figure out how (at best) theycan benefit from domains with the new endings, andhow (at least) they can put systems in place to watchout for, and then stamp on, any illegitimate use oftheir brands under these gTLDs.20 JULY/AUGUST 2012 THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF THE AMUSEMENT AND STREET GAMING INDUSTRY