AdultBlock
What Is AdultBlock?
AdultBlock and AdultBlock+ are new products designed to protect your customers’ brands from abuse under four adult-themed TLDs: .ADULT, .PORN, .SEX, and .XXX. A company’s brand is often their most valuable asset, making them targets of exploitation in the online world. Reputational damage, cybersquatting, and phishing can occur if their domains are not secure and protected. AdultBlock and AdultBlock+ are stepping up to the challenge of securing your customers’ domains from misuse under the adult-themed TLDs mentioned above.
Why Launch AdultBlock Now?
The ICM Registry manages .ADULT, .PORN, .SEX, and .XXX. In 2011, the TLD .XXX and the protection service called Sunrise B blocks were launched. The purpose of Sunrise B blocks was to prevent domain registrations matching trademarks under the adult-themed .XXX TLD. This protected validated trademark holders for ten years from domain abuse on .XXX.
Now, we’re over ten years from this original launch date.
.XXX Sunrise B blocks will all expire on December 1st, 2021. This will expose brand owners to domain abuse if they do not convert Sunrise B blocks to either AdultBlock or AdultBlock+ products.
AdultBlock is designed to provide .XXX Sunrise, Trademark Clearing House (TMCH) customers, and trademark owners with enhanced protection in the adult-themed domain name spaces of .ADULT, .PORN, .SEX, and .XXX.
With AdultBlock, you can block domain registrations with exact match terms across the four adult-themed TLDs mentioned above, including premium domains and future registrations of already registered domains.
AdultBlock+ has extra levels of protection. Not only does AdultBlock+ prevent domain registration with exact match terms, but also variants across all four of these adult-themed TLDs. Variants include misspellings, duplicate characters, confusingly similar names. This potentially blocks thousands of domains similar to trademarks from being abused!
| Feature | AdultBlock | AdultBlock+ |
|---|---|---|
| Block the label across all 4 TLDS | ✓ | ✓ |
| Premium domain name blocking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Blocking of domains when they become available | ✓ | ✓ |
| Variant labels in SMD file and Sunrise Block | ✓ | |
| Unicode variant blocking incl. homoglyphs & IDNS; potentially tallying in the thousands for each label | ✓ | |
| Labels covered | 1 | unlimited |
| Registration periods | 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 years | 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 years |
AdultBlock provides trademark owners with a sense of security knowing that their intellectual property is protected from reputational damage, cybersquatting, and phishing under adult-themed TLDs.
Who Will Be Affected By .XXX Sunrise B blocks and AdultBlock the Most?
- Any brand that participated in the original .XXX Sunrise B program.
- Any brand that has a current Signed Marked Data (SMD) file from the Trademark Clearing House.
Are You A Domain Reseller?
At HEXONET, .XXX Sunrise B blocks in our backend will expire automatically, contrary to expiring at the registry level. This means instead of having to prevent your .XXX Sunrise B block from automatically converting to AdultBlock on December 1st, 2021, you can simply choose if you would like to convert to AdultBlock. This gives you more control over how you want to handle your domains and allows you to avoid paying for something you may not want to purchase.
We advise our resellers to reach out to their customers to help them understand the benefits of domain blocking services like AdultBlock. This will protect your customers from domain abuse while providing you with an opportunity to earn additional revenue. It is also a far more cost-effective solution versus defensively registering domains.
For more information about AdultBlock, reach out to our sales department. We’d be happy to help with any questions or concerns you may have.