If you like the look of [insertyourbrandhere].fashion (instead of .com or .net, which are like SO last season) and you are a trade mark owner, you get priority access to register your preferred domain name before the .fashion gTLD opens up to the public.
You have less than a month to get yourself sorted.
What are we on about?
Last year we wrote about how you can register your trade mark as a gTLD, which is the bit at the end of a domain name (e.g. .com, .net or .org) for a small fee of US$185,000. This would look something like apple.iphone.
Well, now we're talking about the new general categories of gTLDs that are becoming available. The list is getting long and it's happening quickly. Examples of gTLDs on offer include .wedding, .sale and (drum roll please) .fashion. Don't worry, the application fee for registering a .fashion domain name is nowhere near $185k, it's more like a few hundred.
A benefit we can see in registering an industry specific gTLD at the end of your trade mark is that it can make it easy for visitors to your site to recognise what you have on offer.
When do I have to register?
As a trade mark owner, you get priority access to register your trade mark in a domain name with .fashion at the end. Priority access is only given for a short time; for .fashion, it ends on 6 April 2015. After that date, someone else might try to jump in ahead of you and grab the domain for your trading name. You won't lose your rights, but to stop them you'll need to go through the ICANN dispute procedure or take it to court. Expensive and messy – we think it's better to avoid the risk.
We do not disclaim anything about this article. We're quite proud of it really.
