Newsflash

Launch of .SS and .CO.SS

National Communication Authority (NCA), the Registry operator in South Sudan, has announced the launch of two additional TLDs, .SS and .CO.SS, as follows:

• Sunrise Period (end-date, not TMCH): 1 August to 15 September 2024
• Landrush Period:  20 September to 10 October 2024
• Early Access Period: 15 October to 25 October 2024
• General Availability: 1 November 2024

Sunrise

During Sunrise owners of trademarks will be able to submit their applications, and applications will be reviewed and verified on a regular basis but only allocated at the end of the Sunrise period, on 15 September 2024. Trademarks do not need to be recorded at the Trademark Clearinghouse.

Documents to be provided:

• Copy of applicant company/organisation certificate of registration
• Copy of registered trademark matching the domain name

When two trademark owners have legitimate claims to a domain name during Sunrise, these domains go to auction. The applicant will be redirected to the Auction Platform where the auction process will be governed by the Auction Providers.

Landrush

All applications in the Landrush Period will be on a first come first served basis.

Early Access Period

This period is reserved for applicants who wish to secure domain names that have not yet been registered in previous phases, and that do not appear in the premium domains list, before General Availability opens.

During Sunrise the minimum registration period will be 2 years.  The term of registration for Landrush, EAP, and General Availability will be 1 year minimum and 5 years maximum.

The Registry, at its discretion, may reserve certain names from registration such as, names held by the Registry, names of National significance and premium names. The list of reserved names is subject to revision at the Registry’s discretion.

For further information, for pricing, or to place an order, please contact your Domain Strategist or contact us directly.

NameBlock launches BrandLock for Freename

NameBlock AS has announced that beginning 1 September 2024, and in partnership with Freename, a leader in Web3 domain services, they will be offering a new BrandLock service.

There will be different protection packages that will block the registration or minting of domain names matching a label across the Freename platform’s Web3 Top-Level Domains (TLDs).

There will be three BrandLock for Freename packages:

• FreenameALL will offer protection by blocking a label across all existing ~16,800 Web3 TLDs hosted by Freename.
• Freename4k will provide essential brand protection across a fixed list of 4,000 Freename Web3 TLDs.
• Freename100 will blocks an exact match label across a fixed list of 100 Freename Web3 TLDs.

To find out more, please contact your Domain Strategist or contact us directly.