[smutticus]

I stand somewhat corrected. It looks like Vox Populi has created a class they're calling "Sunrise Premium Names" and will price discriminate even after the sunrise period ends.

http://domainincite.com/18246-halt-perverted-sucks-shakedown... "Sunrise Premium names will always cost $2,500, even after sunrise, when registered by the trademark owner."

This is basically without precedent, so it will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

[snowwrestler]

There's an argument to be made that the purpose of trademark protection is to protect against confusion, not against criticism.

It's hard to imagine that many consumers would confuse a website called ford.sucks for the real actual Ford Motor Company. If it goes to litigation, I could see a U.S. federal judge deciding that the entire .sucks TLD is basically immune to the consumer confusion argument, with possibly a few exceptions for vacuum cleaner companies, sump pump manufacturers, and others who might "professionally suck."

Personally I think it's foolish to try to preemptively register every nasty domain name. It's a big language out there, and crowdsourcing seems to work really well when it comes to insults.

But, a lot of companies are super sensitive to criticism, and Vox Populi is obviously trying to profit off of that.