Domain names: Internet takes big step toward end of .com era

January 12th marked the opening bell for anyone who wants a website ending with something other than .com, .edu, or one of the other 20 familiar Internet suffixes.

From a legal standpoint, there will be challenges to launching the new system, says trademark attorney Erik Pelton. “Who is entitled to .delta? Delta airlines or Delta faucet?” he says. But perhaps the bigger concern to businesses is that cybersquatters might register online addresses that intentionally mislead surfers. “Already, large and small trademark owners struggle to prevent cybersquatting and other malicious uses of their trademarks in connection with third-party domain-name registrations,” says Trevor Schmidt, an intellectual property attorney with Moore & Van Allen. This could represent an exponential increase costs associated with protecting a famous brand, he notes. Although ICANN has adopted a number of protections for trademark owners, “none of these protections are without cost,” he says.