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Will Vox Populi eat its own .sucks dog food?

Kevin Murphy, March 30, 2015, 13:47:44 (UTC), Domain Registries

Vox Populi has yet to decide whether it will put its mouth where its money is and open up its own brand for the .sucks treatment.
In a radio interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Day 6 show broadcast on Friday, registry CEO John Berard was asked whether the company would register voxpopuli.sucks and allow it to be used as a third-party criticism site.
Vox Populi is positioning .sucks as a space where big brands and others register names in order to solicit useful commentary, criticism and conversation from their customers.
So the correct answer to the question would have been: “Yes, of course we will do that.”
But Berard was more ambiguous in his response:

HOST: What will you do with the voxpopuli.sucks web site? Will you put it up or will you hold it?
BERARD: My instinct would be to put it up.
HOST: But there’s a possibility that you won’t?
BERARD: It’s a business decision we’ll have to make and I think it’s probably the smarter business decision to put it up.

In my view, the company would be mad to sit on voxpopuli.sucks and related names.
By eating its own dog food, it would send the message that it actually believes its own marketing line.
I’m frankly surprised that Vox Pop has not already enthusiastically confirmed it will open itself up to the same kind of treatment as its sunrise period customers.
The full 15-minute CBC piece, which includes four minutes of yours truly busting his radio cherry and five of domain investor Rick Schwartz bitching about how “corrupt” ICANN is, can be streamed here.
The .sucks sunrise period begins today, with a controversial recommended retail price of $2,500 per year.

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Comments (2)

  1. Reg says:
    March 30, 2015 at 4:45 pm

    Plus, it’ll give an outlet for the IPC to complain without taking it straight to ICANN. There may be something to be said for catharsis.

    Reply
  2. Michael Cyger says:
    March 30, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    “I’m frankly surprised that Vox Pop has not already enthusiastically confirmed it will open itself up to the same kind of treatment as its sunrise period customers.”
    You nailed it on the head, Kevin.
    The CEO of Vox basically said, if you’re a forward thinking company you’re going to host an environment that allows people to talk about how you can improve your offers using a [trademark].sucks.
    If Vox is not going to do what they say others should do, then they’re just being hypocritical. Still feels like what Rick Schwartz describes as a shakedown of corporations.

    Reply

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