The early registration period for the new .sucks domain ended earlier this week, and the list of registrants is a veritable who’s who of international brands, sports teams and celebrities — and the tech/marketing industry is well represented, too.
Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo were all active during the “sunrise” period, when trademark owners could reserve their own names for about $2,500 per domain. The high price led many domain industry watchers to accuse Vox Populi, the company that runs the .sucks registry, of brand extortion. Even ICANN, the international domain oversight agency that created .sucks, has asked the U.S. and Canadian governments if Vox Populi is breaking any laws with its pricing and registration structure. (Vox Populi denies the accusation.)
Controversy or not, the early registration period is now over and .sucks is open to public registrations. According to TheDomains.com, nearly 3,400 names were included in the .sucks registry’s zone file when the sunrise period ended at midnight Sunday morning. (Aside: The zone file is what registries use to control the resolution of their domains. It lists a domain name and what name servers handle it, so it may be incomplete — domains that are registered but not associated with a name server won’t be listed. In other words, this list of 3,400 is almost certainly incomplete.)
There are also several notable tech companies that didn’t bother reserving their own .sucks names. Here’s a look at some of the companies that did and didn’t, based on that 3,400-name zone file.
Companies Registering .sucks Domain Names
Here’s a partial list of .sucks names that well known tech companies registered. (Partial because I’m not listing all of the Xbox-related names that Microsoft registered, for example.)
Amazon: Amazon.sucks, Kindle.sucks
Google: Google.sucks, Adsense.sucks, Adwords.sucks, Android.sucks, Blogger.sucks, Chrome.sucks, Glass.sucks, Gmail.sucks, Nest.sucks, YouTube.sucks
Microsoft: Microsoft.sucks, Bing.sucks, Cortana.sucks, Excel.sucks, Hotmail.sucks, InternetExplorer.sucks, MSN.sucks, Office.sucks, Office365.sucks, Outlook.sucks, Skype.sucks, Surface.sucks, Windows.sucks, WindowsPhone.sucks, Xbox.sucks
Facebook: Facebook.sucks, Instagram.sucks, a few Oculus-related names
Yahoo: Yahoo.sucks, Flickr.sucks, Tumblr.sucks
eBay: eBay.sucks
WordPress: WordPress.sucks
WhatsApp: WhatsApp.sucks
WolframAlpha: WolframAlpha.sucks
Yelp: Yelp.sucks
The NFL was an active registrant, both with its own names (nfl.sucks, superbowl.sucks, etc.) and with team names (seahawks.sucks, patriots.sucks, etc.). Many other pro sports teams registered their .sucks, and even several colleges and universities did, too.
Consumer brands like Walmart, Ford, Verizon, Toyota, BMW, Abercrombie, Geico, Aflac and countless others registered at least one version of their .sucks name. Airlines were active registrants: Air Canada, Air France, Air New Zealand, American Airlines and Delta were among the major airlines grabbing domains.
Celebrity .sucks Registrants
Many celebrities registered their .sucks names, too, including Adele, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, Britney Spears, Rihanna, James Hetfield & Kirk Hammett of Metallica and country music superstar Jason Aldean.
Outside of the entertainment industry, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg registered several .sucks domains related to his name (markzuckerbergreally.sucks, for example), Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg registered her name, and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton registered her .sucks name. (As far as I can tell, she’s the only candidate in either party to do so.)
Marketing Industry .sucks Registrants
There are several marketing-related companies whose names are associated with early .sucks registrations:
Magento: Magento.sucks SearchMetrics: SearchMetrics.sucks SearchFit: SearchFit.sucks STAT: Stat.sucks and GetStat.sucks SERPS: Serps.sucks Sparkpost: SparkPost.sucks and SparkPostElite.sucks NetSuite: NetSuite.sucks and SuiteCommerce.sucks Yodle: YodleComplaints.sucks and YodleReviews.sucks
Companies NOT Pre-Registering .sucks Domain Names
It’s just as interesting, and maybe more interesting, to see which notable companies didn’t register their own name(s) during the sunrise period. Here are some that I noticed missing from the list of 3,400 names, listed in alphabetical order:
LinkedIn: LinkedIn.sucks MySpace: MySpace.sucks Pinterest: Pinterest.sucks Quora: Quora.sucks Reddit: Reddit.sucks Snapchat: Snapchat.sucks Twitter: Twitter.sucks, Periscope.sucks and Vine.sucks are all unregistered. Wikipedia: Wikipedia.sucks
(Note: Some of these names may have been registered between the time of my research and the time you’re reading this.)
What About Apple?
You may have noticed that Apple doesn’t show up on any of the lists above. The reason is that there’s some built-in uncertainty over when Apple registered its own .sucks domain.
Apple.sucks wasn’t on the initial sunrise pre-registration list that TheDomains.com published, but the company has purchased the domain — a WHOIS record check proves that. It’s possible that Apple didn’t buy the domain until after the sunrise period. But since zone files only include domain names that are associated with name servers, it’s also possible that Apple bought the name early but didn’t associate any name servers with it, thus keeping it off the original list.
Apple did register MacOSX.sucks, BeatsAudio.sucks and a few other Beats-related names during the sunrise period.
First .sucks Websites Online
Meanwhile, the first .sucks websites are now online. According to the Domain Incite website, the first one was dealman.sucks. Deal Man is a men’s clothing company based in New Zealand. The .sucks website is currently devoid of all content, and we have an email in to Vox Populi to find out why.
Speaking of Vox Populi, the company decided to get a taste of its own medicine and has put dotsucks.sucks online, a website where consumers can talk about the domain (and company) itself. So far, there haven’t been many takers: just nine posts in five days. You could say that level of activity sucks….
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