The domain name registry of Andorra, which operates the .ad TLD (top-level domain, or domain extension) has recently announced that registration restrictions are to be lifted later this year. Previously, registration of .ad domains was only possible to Andorran brands or organisations, looking to register their name as a domain name, directly through the registry. From the 22nd October 2024, however - following a transition phase - the domains will be offered in General Availability, with any entity able to register an available domain, on a first-come, first-served basis, through any accredited registrar[1,2].
The .ad extension thereby has significant potential to be used in a generic capacity, with '.ad' used to refer to advertisements or advertising. Similar trends have been observed with various other ccTLDs (country-codeTLDs), such as .io (commonly used for technology brands), .ai (for brands relating to artificial intelligence), .tv (relating to television or streaming services) and .co (as an alternative to .com for company websites)[3]. The potential commercial popularity of .ad will likely also make the extension popular with infringers and cybersquatters.
Currently - and perhaps unsurprisingly given the previous restrictions - the number of registered .ad domains is low. As a ccTLD (for which comprehensive zone-file data is often unavailable), the exact numbers are difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, DomainTools[4] provides an estimate of 2,336 domains (as of the 23rd May 2024), which makes it only the 673rd-largest TLD (out of the 1,554 for which data is available). More granular insights are available from other data sources, such as the zonefiles.io[5] database (which lists the names of 871 of the .ad domains, as of March 2024), and the use of Google "site:" queries (which presents listings for 119 live .ad websites indexed by the search engine as of the 23rd May 2024). Of the 871 specific domain names identified, 630 (72%) return a live website response. The great majority of the domains point at IP addresses which are physically hosted in Europe, with the top five hosting countries found to be Andorra (AD) (28%), France (FR) (19%), Spain (ES) (19%), the United States (US) (18%) and Germany (DE) (5%) (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Hosting countries of the 871 identified .ad domains
Again unsurprisingly, given the restrictions in place, the websites associated with the registered domains are dominated by companies and organisations with presences in Andorra, and with domain names which are directly descriptive of the entity in question. For example, the top three websites returned by Google in response to a search for "site: .ad" are residencialaltavista.ad (Altavista), zoo.ad (Zoo Studio), and aca.ad (Automòbil Club d'Andorra). Amongst the wider dataset of registered domain names, examples pertaining to a number of popular brands and well-known organisations are already registered, including amazon.ad, aol.ad, google.ad, mcdonalds.ad, orange.ad, unesco.ad, and unicef.ad. In all of these cases, the domains resolve or re-direct to an official website for the company in question.
As the restrictions are dropped later in the year, it will be interesting to see how quickly the number of registrations grows, and how the patterns of use, abuse and infringement emerge. It is also possible, as alluded to earlier, that the extension may become extensively associated with advertising fraud (such as abuse of affiliate schemes). A primary recommendation is for brand owners to secure key or defensive registrations as early as possible, and to monitor the space more generally for developments. This is particularly crucial in view of the fact that, as yet, the registry has made no announcements about the nature of any domain dispute procedure which may be put in place.
References
[2] https://www.domini.ad/vullunad/
[3] 'Patterns in Brand Monitoring' by D.N. Barnett, Chapter 9: 'Domain landscape analysis' [awaiting publication]
[4] https://research.domaintools.com/statistics/tld-counts/
This article was first published on 29 May 2024 at:
https://www.iamstobbs.com/opinion/a-new-tld-to-.ad-to-the-collection
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