.Name Frequently Asked Questions

.Name Domains

Email Forwarding

NameWatch Services

Defensive Registrations

Dispute Resolution

Why would I want a .name domain?

A .name domain will provide you with a more personal alternative to the popular .com extension. It will make it easy for someone to remember your web and e-mail addresses.

Website - You may want to use it for your website, and have www.firstname.lastname.name as a web address. You can create your own personal website where you can showcase your interests or communicate with family and friends across the world. Your imagination is the only limit.

You also have the flexibility to create as many sub-levels on your domain as you like. If you are a football fan why not create football.martin.johnson.name? Or if you are expecting, you could create newaddition.jennifer.smith.name to announce your new baby.

Email address - Or you can stay in touch with your friends, family and colleagues with your firstname@lastname.name. What could be easier to remember?

What is allowed in a .name domain registration and what is not?

You will be able to register your name in numerous combinations.

Here are a few examples:

  • Bob.Jones.name
  • Jones.Bob.name
  • B.Jones.name
  • J.Bob.name

There are, however, a few restrictions to your registrations. You are not allowed to register an initial on the second level nor are you allowed to register only a second level .name. For example these registrations will not be allowed:

  • Bob.J.name
  • Jones.name

What are the registration terms for .name domains and services?

Product Available Terms

  • Domain 1, 2, or 10 years
  • Email forwarding 1, 2, or 10 years
  • Premier Defensive Registration 10 years
  • Standard Defensive Registration 10 years
  • NameWatch 1, 2, or 10 years

What is special about .name email forwarding?

In .name, registrations are done on the third level, enabling sharing of the same family name all over the world. Normally an email address would therefore be on the fourth level, of the type mail@John.Smith.name. To provide a simpler email address, .name proposes an entirely new technology uniquely developed that allows a third level domain to have a second level email address.

The Email Forwarding will allow a user to have an email address of the type firstname@lastname.name.

The .name Registry will allow registrations of second level email addresses in the same way as Domains names, through the same protocol as Domains and with a similar and powerful management interface.

The service will accept incoming email to a firstname@lastname.name address and will forward that mail to an address specified by the user. The user must have a pre-existing email account to use this service. The service will only offer incoming message forwarding to registered users, and will not provide outgoing SMTP relaying for any users.

The Corresponding Name Service of a Domains firstname.example.name will be the Email Forwarding address firstname@example.name, and vice versa.

How does .name email forwarding work?

The .name Registry will provide an Email Forwarding service enabling firstname@lastname.name email addresses to be registered on second-level .name Domains.

Registrations for the Email Forwarding service will be done in batches during the Landrush period in the same way as for Domains.

Upon receiving a registration request for an Email Forwarding address if the second-level domain has not been used previously, the .name Registry will enter an MX (mail exchanger) resource record in the zone file for the second-level domain that references a mail exchanger operated by the .name Registry. This process will not block the chosen second-level domain from usage for normal domain-name registrations.

The user name firstname must comply with the requirements for third-level labels in registered Domains within .name. The registrant has the following options:

  • Register both Domains and Email Forwarding (e.g. firstname.example.name, and firstname@example.name), if both are available;
  • Register the Domains product only, if it is available (e.g. firstname.example.name); or
  • Register the Email Forwarding product only, if it is available (e.g. firstname@example.name).

Upon registration of a Name, the Corresponding Name Service will be reserved for 120 days, if it is not already registered.

During this period, a person attempting to register the domain name firstname.example.name would be prevented from doing so if a different person had already registered the Email Forwarding address firstname@example.name.

During this reservation period, the registrant will have the option to register the Corresponding Name Service.

During the reservation period, only the Authorized Registrar that originally registered the Name may register the Corresponding Name Service to the registrant. If the Corresponding Name Service remains unregistered after the reservation period expires, it will be released into the pool of globally available names. The .name Registry reserves the right to change the reservation period upon ninety (90) days notice to the Authorized Registrars.

What are the restrictions on .name email forwarding?

The .name Registry has reserved the right to restrict the Email Forwarding service to operate inside the following restrictions:

  • Maximum Number of messages in the email-forwarding queue from one user at a time will be limited to 500, after which the .name Registry will reserve the right to bounce messages to the specific user.
  • The .name Registry reserves the right to bounce messages if the total email-forwarding queue for one user reaches a size of 50 MB.
  • The .name Registry reserves the right to stop forwarding of messages that are larger than 20 MB in size.
  • The .name Registry reserves the right to block users that receive more than 3000 emails in any 24-hour period.
  • The .name Registry reserves the right to rate control the number of mails received and the quantity of email forwarded by the Email Forwarding service in order to maintain a stable, secure and reliable service.

What is the NameWatch service?

The NameWatch service provides subscribers with a report summarizing all new registrations made under .name that match a key term. Both Domains and Email forwarding addresses registered at the .name registry will be covered in one report.

For example, if you take out an annual subscription on the term JKL, they would receive an electronic report on a daily, weekly or monthly basis (as they choose) for the duration of the year, featuring every name newly registered under .name that includes JKL (such as john.jkl.name or jklept.jones.name).

Intellectual property owners monitor for use of their trademarks in the real world by subscribing to watching services that cover all applications for trademarks made at national trademark registries. If the watch service report highlights an application that is similar or identical to one of these trademarks, the trademark owner may file an objection with the registrar or take other legal action.

The NameWatch service helps intellectual property owners extend this coverage to the .name registry. A NameWatch subscription will alert trademark owners to new .name registrations made by third parties that, if they are infringing or being used to point to a web site with infringing material, can be challenged under the UDRP or through the courts.

NameWatch subscriptions will appeal to intellectual property owners who want to protect their trademarks - though company secretaries, brand enforcement specialists or anyone else concerned with preserving the integrity of a trademark, brand or company name may also subscribe.

Celebrities will also be concerned with who is registering variations of their names.

The NameWatch service does not depend upon unique registrations. The same string can be on watch for different entities. As an example, two different entities may want to monitor the registrations on sub-strings or matches of i.e. "NewCo", and both entities will therefore have an identical string on watch and be equally notified.

Each report will provide an incremental summary of the names measured since the last report.

What are the limitations on the NameWatch service?

It will only watch new filings, not deletions, transfers, expirations or changes in data.

We cannot accept subscriptions for one or two character terms (such as BE) because of the potentially very high number of matches. Nor can we monitor for terms more than 63 characters long.

We do however, accept character strings with hyphens.

What are Defensive Registrations?

A Defensive Registration is designed for the owners of registered trademarks who want to block out the registration of names that conflict with their trademarks. Filing a Defensive Registration is like building a wall around a character string. No one can get over the wall although they might be able to come in through the gate - but only if your client, the trademark owner, gives consent.

Thus a Defensive Registration will block out speculators and domain pirates, but should an individual be able to show that their name happens to coincide with a registered trademark, filed as a Defensive Registration, he or she may be given permission to use that name by the trademark owner.

A Defensive Registration can be challenged by a person who claims that their name coincides with the trademark. However, it is believed that the consent-mechanism will pre-empt many challenges.

Defensive Registrations will appeal to trademark owners such as corporations or celebrities who have spent thousands of dollars in formally registering trademarks at national or regional trademark offices. Some corporations may choose to buy just one Defensive Registration for their main corporate name; others will be interested in several for what they regard as their key trademarks; a third set might wish to protect every name in their portfolio.

We anticipate that clients who buy Premium Defensive Registrations and, especially, Standard Defensive Registrations will want to buy a NameWatch subscription.

What are the different types of Defensive Registrations?

Intellectual property owners can choose between two types of Defensive Registration, depending on the level of protection they prefer.

Premium Defensive Registration

A Premium Defensive Registration will stop anyone from registering any variation of a trademark. Because .name registrations consist of both second and third level labels, conflicts on both levels are avoided.

For example, if your clients have the trademark ABC, a Premium Defensive registration will block out any one who tries to register:

anystring.abc.name

or

abc.anystring.name

A Premium Defensive Registration is the highest form of protection you can give your clients under .name because it stops any term whatsoever being associated with their trademark.

Standard Defensive Registration

A Standard Defensive Registration will stop anyone from registering an exact match of a trademark.

For example, if your clients have the trademark XYZ that they have filed for a type of soda, a Standard Defensive Registration will block out anyone who tries to register:

soda.xyz.name

In this example, your client chose the term "soda" to go with his trademark xyz. This registration would not stop anyone else from filing, for example, fred.xyz.name if his or her name happens to be xyz because fred.xyz.name is not an exact match to soda.xyz.name. Should your client want this higher level of protection, they should take out a Premium Defensive Registration. If the trademark owner also wanted to block out xyz.soda.name, that would require a second Standard Defensive Registration.

The dot can also be used to replace a space in the registered mark, for example, for the registered mark "Sample Mark", sample.mark.name can be registered as a Standard Defensive Registration.

What are the .name dispute-resolution policies?

Uniform Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP).