Opportunity:
FairWinds’ client, one of the world’s leading premium spirits companies, needed help managing its domain name program. Managing an efficient program requires a significant amount of time, experience and resources, which not every company may be able to provide. FairWinds, on the other hand, can provide the expert advice and guidance needed to realize the potential of a client’s domain name portfolio and to effectively navigate the domain name space. The client turned to FairWinds, therefore, for help managing its domain program from an administrative perspective, in order to receive help with domain name request management, workflow interfacing, vendor oversight, and much more. This would then free the client from this burden and enable the client to focus on other important projects and strategic initiatives. The result was the client engaging FairWinds for Domain Name Program Administration services.
Approach:
FairWinds’ Domain Name Program Administration is an ongoing service that combines domain name program management with expert advice, analysis and oversight. This client specifically needed help with transfers, registrations and modifications, as well as internal DNS modifications. FairWinds is able to help with domain name administrative functions and activities and can provide guidance on a number of related topics, such as internationalized domain names, domain name servers, and Internet policy. In addition, for this client, FairWinds worked diligently to secure a number of blocks and registrations in the new .XXX gTLD, in order to protect the client’s brand and reputation, which it did not want associated with adult content or harmed by cybersquatters.
Impact:
In 2011 alone, FairWinds completed 156 requests for the client, making 2 Nameserver updates, 9 ownership modifications, 114 domain name registrations, and 29 domain name transfers. These are all incredibly important, yet time-consuming, administrative tasks that help ensure that a domain name portfolio is effective, efficient and up-to-date. It is dangerous to be unorganized because domain names can lapse and companies can lose out on valuable opportunities if they don’t have the kind of insight and experience that FairWinds possesses and can lend. One of the most important items done was to protect a select eight of the client’s most valuable and important brands in the new .XXX gTLD by participating in the Sunrise B Period and paying to block them, effectively preventing anyone from ever registering those domain names and keeping them safely out of third-party hands.