.sucks is an internet

domain registrar A domain name registrar is a company, person, or office that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) r ...

company that controls the rights to sell .sucks domains.

.sucks domain names

.sucks domains are owned and controlled by the Vox Populi Registry. Vox Populi won the rights for .sucks gTLD in November 2014. Domains with .sucks names became available after the

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

(ICANN) approved the

generic top-level domain Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of ev ...

name (gTLD) in 2014 and assigned it to Vox Populi Registry Inc. in March 2015. Its primary use is apparently for

domain hacks A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. For example, and , using the domains ''.bot'' and ''.le'', suggest the words ''robot'' and ''example'' respectiv ...

. The number of registrations and renewals of .sucks domains appears to be declining as of 2018.

Controversy

.sucks domains have generated controversy regarding potential

cybersquatting Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting) is the practice of registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name, with a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The term is derived ...

, as individuals can purchase a trademarked domain with

bad faith Bad faith (Latin: ''mala fides'') is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another."of two hearts ... a sustained form of deception which c ...

intent to sell the domain at an inflated price. Several celebrities and companies have purchased .sucks domains in order to protect their brands from potential exploitation, including

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. As a result of the company's pricing model, .sucks has been criticized for high costs associated with trademarked .sucks domains. In 2015, ICANN sent a letter to the

U.S. Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It shares jurisdiction over fe ...

to investigate Vox Populi Registry for potentially illegal and predatory actions. The FTC concluded that Vox Populi did not break any rules, but pointed out that ICANN has previously ignored several concerns from the FTC on the topic of new domain names.

References

External links

Official website
{{GTLD Domain name registrars

Sucks Suck may refer to: *Suction, the force exerted by a partial vacuum * .sucks, an Internet top-level domain Arts and entertainment Music * Suck (band), a South African hard rock group * Suck, drummer for the 1990s Japanese punk band Teengenerate ...

Internet properties established in 2015