That Dot Sucks

ICANN, the agency that oversees the naming and address system on the Internet, has asked the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and Canada's Office of Consumer Affairs to review whether laws might have been broken during the rollout of the new .sucks top-level domain name extension.

Many companies have complained the system is predatory, exploitive and coercive.

Only trademarket holders (and celebrities) can reserve their .sucks Internet addresses but that comes with a hefty price tag of $2,000 per domain. The .sucks extension will be available for just $10 when the general availability phase (where the general population can register domains) begins if they opt to make their site part of the Vox Populi (the Canadian registry which operates the extension) discussion network.

ICANN asked the regulatory bodies to determine whether any laws had been broken. "ICANN is concerned about the contentions of illicit actions being expressed, but notes that ICANN has limited expertise or authority to determine the legality of Vox Populi's positions, which we believe would fall in your respective regulatory regimes," the group said in the letter.

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