Friday, September 21, 2018

A dotBrand Email is a Seal

In August the 14th of 2018, we relayed the information that Canon email addresses would use a ".canon" domain name ending. Changing the domain name extension for websites is one thing but changing emails...is something else.


A ".brand" domain name is seal
We've already explained the benefit of using a personalized domain name, ending in the name of a trademark for a website: it clarifies things and a user can be certain that he has reached the right website and no copy, or competitor or squatter, of it. Due to the prohibitive new gTLD application fee of $185,000, it makes it hard for squatters to follow.

A good example to show would that website from Gucci (the famous luxury Trademark): https://www.diventafornitore.gucci/. The domain name extensions ending in ".gucci" is the seal since there's no mistake, nor doubt, about where the consumer has reached out to: it is the Gucci Trademark.

If some Trademarks, to have applied for their own domain name extension, start to use their dotBrand new gTLD for their websites, only one has announced its intention to change all of its emails: the Canon Trademark just did that.

A ".brand" email is a seal
It is possible to fake an email: I receive spam coming from my own personalized email sometimes and my spam filter just knows it and does the rest. It means that any spammer with a little knowledge knows how to fake an email but the purpose of using such method is just to send emails for spam, not get a response so we're not really concerned here since the real benefit of using a ".brand" email is to send AND receive emails.

Spammers also often use typos in domain names (they also now use homoglyphs more and more) but they can do that creating second level domains only (what comes right before the extension), not first domains (the extension) and that's where the huge difference is.

When receiving an email from a domain name ending in ".com" (for example), anything that comes before the ".com" extension could have been created by anyone; and so the email could come from...anyone, unless the receiver is certain that it comes from the right person AND that it is not an homoglyph. The truth is that this does not happen very often but it happens and it could happen to you. Banks and other major Trademarks from all industries face such spam sent to their clients daily.

When receiving an email ending in the name of a Trademark like Canon just announced it, no one can create a domain name ending in that same Trademark but the Trademark itself which applied for it at the ICANN as a .BRAND new gTLD (specification 13). It then blocks instantly hackers and squatters from the possibility to do the same. Canon explains:
"Because ".canon" can only be used by Canon Group companies and services as well as related organizations, visitors to sites that use the TLD can easily confirm their authenticity and be assured that the information they contain is reliable."
Welcome to the future of secured email.

Hey wait...
What if an entrepreneur applied for a Trademark similar to the Canon one and decided to sell these domain names to the public? Good question...have a look here then ;-)

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