There’s a downside to every business, and looking at the Ancestry.com SEC filing, it’s hard to see anything but the bucket of gold. However, Ancestry.com has cited acquiring country code domain names as a potential risk. That comes with having such a high-level domain name in the first place. The name Ancestry or Genealogy is at the top of the heap when it comes to naming a genealogy company. If an American company didn’t grab up the domain names designated for foreign countries years ago, they most likely won’t just go out and register them today. Although they own the British name, “ancestry.co.uk,” Ancestry.com seems to be having that challenge today.
In my own case, Patty and I wanted a rather high level name for our publishing company. We finally settled on Family Roots Publishing, because no one else had registered the name. We felt lucky to get it. We were able to register the name GenealogyBlog.com years ago when genealogy blogging was just in its infancy. I’ll bet that we couldn’t have gotten that name a month later.
The following excerpt is from the SEC S-1 filing:
If we are unable to protect our domain names, our reputation and brand could be affected adversely.
We have registered domain names for website destinations that we use in our business, such as Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com and myfamily.com. However, if we are unable to maintain our rights in these domain names, our competitors could capitalize on our brand recognition by using these domain names for their own benefit. In addition, our competitors could capitalize on our brand recognition by using domain names similar to ours. Domain names similar to ours have been registered in the United States and elsewhere, and in many countries the top-level domain names “ancestry” or “genealogy” are owned by other parties. Though we own the “ancestry.co.uk” domain name in the United Kingdom, we might not be able to, or may choose not to, acquire or maintain other country-specific versions of the “ancestry” and “genealogy” domain names. Further, the relationship between regulations governing domain names and laws protecting trademarks and similar proprietary rights varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and is unclear in some jurisdictions. We may be unable to prevent third parties from acquiring and using domain names that infringe on, are similar to, or otherwise decrease the value of, our brand or our trademarks or service marks. Protecting and enforcing our rights in our domain names and determining the rights of others may require litigation, which could result in substantial costs and divert management attention. We may not prevail if any such litigation is initiated.
A post at Domain Name Wire calls names like Ancestry “category killers,” in that it’s hard to find other names that will compete within that market. Read their comments…
