News

    David Goldstein - Donuts Extends Domain Protection Promotion And Delays Price Increase

    26.01.2017

    Protecting a brand online across a wide number of top level domains can be a time consuming and expensive business. With this in mind Donuts developed their Domains Protected Marks List (DPML) that allows brand owners to add their trademark and trademark-related terms to the DPML in order to block those terms from registration at the second level across all top-level domains owned and operated by Donuts with the cost much lower than if domains were protected individually in each gTLD. Currently Donuts operate 197 new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs).

    To add to the benefits of their DPML, Donuts announced DPML Plus last September as an enhanced service. DPML Plus gives brand owners a number of benefits including the opportunity to block misspellings of their trademarks for the first time across all Donuts gTLDs for an initial 10-year block term.

    Now Donuts have announced they’re extending the availability of DPML Plus. DPML Plus was to be available until 31 December, and effective 1 January the price of the legacy DPML service would be increased to better align the service’s benefits with marketplace value.

    But in late December Donuts announced that due to strong demand for the service that:

    • DPML Plus will remain available until 31 March
    • Legacy DPML subscription prices will remain at current levels until 31 January.

    This means that for brand owners that utilise the legacy service there is now additional time to renew subscriptions prior to the price increase and an three additional months to employ the service for widened protections. Donuts’ suggested retail price for DPML Plus is $9,999 (about the total cost to manage one to two UDRP proceedings) for the ten-year period.

    DPML applications must be submitted through a registrar authorised to sell Donuts domains such as Brandshelter.