Investing in a new brand protection product can be a complex decision for some organizations, especially compared to tried-and-true strategies such as defensive domain portfolios. However, Network Solutions’ Caroline Kay makes a compelling case for the financial savings offered by accessing domain blocking at scale through GlobalBlock.
Caroline spoke with the BSA’s Tony Kirsch to explain why GlobalBlock and its premium product GlobalBlock+ make strong financial sense compared to increasing defensive portfolio costs.
Tony: Can you start by introducing yourself - your role, your company, and how you came to specialize in brand protection and domain strategy?
Caroline: My name is Caroline Kay, and I lead the Platinum group at Network Solutions, part of the Newfold Digital family. With over 20 years in the domain industry, I began by helping SMBs establish their online presence. Over the past eight years, I have focused on serving our enterprise and growth clients, which is where my passion for brand protection and defensive strategy truly developed.
What does your typical day look like in terms of what support your customers need?
Our days vary based on the urgent needs of our enterprise clients, whether that’s domains, security, or brand protection. We deliver critical solutions including brand protection, DNS security, and automated renewal management to safeguard against cyber threats, domain hijacking, and accidental expirations.
Network Solutions has an incredible history in the industry - what made you want to become a partner and provide GlobalBlock to your customers?
Network Solutions has long been a trusted name in the industry, and GlobalBlock helps extend that trust into proactive prevention. It was a natural fit to pair our deep domain expertise with advanced brand protection solutions.
Together, we move beyond simply managing domains to actively preventing threats. This alliance bridges the gap between owning a domain and truly protecting your brand. It represents an evolution from domain management to comprehensive brand protection, and GlobalBlock makes that possible.
You've been vocal about the value of GlobalBlock. What's the conversation you find yourself having most often with brands in understanding its value?
Most companies still react to domain threats after they occur, but we’re showing them how to prevent these issues before they start. This mindset shift from reactive protection to proactive prevention is critical. They are all too familiar with the damage caused by domain abuse, whether it’s phishing, impersonation, or lookalike domains. However, they often manage these problems only after they arise, relying on monitoring and takedown efforts.
We ask them, ‘what if you could stop most of that before it ever becomes an issue?’
That’s where GlobalBlock really resonates. Once clients realize they can effectively reserve or block their name across hundreds of domain extensions in a single step - without the complexity and high cost of defensive registrations - it quickly becomes a game changer. From that point, the conversation naturally shifts to reducing risk and improving efficiency, shrinking the attack surface, streamlining portfolio management, and freeing up valuable internal resources. This isn’t just about security, it’s about smarter, more scalable brand protection.
Ultimately, the question of value moves from ‘why do I need this?’ to ‘why wouldn’t I want this?’
Walk us through the math you've done on defensive domain registration. If a brand tried to buy the same coverage GlobalBlock standard provides, what would that actually cost them?
In sales, value is often best demonstrated through numbers. To help both our team and clients understand what GlobalBlock actually delivers relative to its cost, I put together a simple breakdown.
GlobalBlock now covers 840+ domains spanning nTLDs, gTLDs, ccTLDs, and Web3 blockchain domains. To register that same portfolio independently, a brand would typically spend between $50,000 and $90,000 or more, given that legacy domains retail between $50 and $105 each, and Web3 domains can range from $30 to well over $2,500. Network Solutions customers are able to purchase the GlobalBlock standard service at $6,500 per year, which equates to approximately $7.70 per domain, making it a fraction of the cost of piecing together equivalent coverage individually.
And when you factor in GlobalBlock+, how does the per-domain cost change? Why does that matter for brands thinking about scale?
The picture becomes even more compelling when we look at GlobalBlock+ which the majority of our customers prefer, frankly. Coverage expands somewhat depending on the number of characters within the brand name, but we regularly see significantly over 50,000 domains being protected for our customers, incorporating homoglyphs and confusable character variants that represent a significant and often overlooked threat vector. At a conservative average of $50 per domain, the retail value of that portfolio would exceed $2,500,000. At Network Solutions, we have GlobalBlock+ priced at $9,500 per year, which brings the average per-domain cost down to approximately $0.19 and in many cases, even less.
That per-domain figure is what matters most for brands thinking about scale. As a brand grows across new markets, products, and brand variants, the number of domains worth protecting grows with it. GlobalBlock+ absorbs that expansion without a corresponding increase in cost or complexity, closing the blind spots that individual or legacy-first approaches routinely leave open.
So, for our customers, accessing this volume of domains at that price is a revolution in preventing impersonation. And, if the Priority AutoCatch service manages to seize one or two domains for the customer each year, then the value of the service skyrockets even further.
Web3 domains are a newer piece of this puzzle. What should brands understand about the permanence of Web3 registrations and why does that raise the stakes compared to traditional TLDs?
One of the most important aspects of Web3 is that once a digital asset is purchased, the owner holds it in perpetuity. This makes proactivity absolutely essential.
With traditional domains there are established governance structures, dispute mechanisms, and recovery processes. If issues like infringement or bad faith registrations arise, there are clear paths to challenge or remediate them.
However, Web3 lacks much of this safety net. Registrations are often unchangeable once recorded on the blockchain and ownership is directly tied to a digital wallet. This means if a bad actor registers your brand name in Web3, there is typically no central authority to appeal to, no UDRP or similarly governed process, and no straightforward way to reclaim it. They essentially gain control over your brand.
This permanence raises the stakes significantly. We can no longer rely on having a trademark to fix this later. Instead, it’s critical to get ahead of registrations immediately or risk losing control of your brand.
When speaking with clients, the conversation shifts to mindset, understanding that Web3 expands the attack surface into an environment where prevention isn’t just preferable, it’s essential. That’s exactly where solutions like GlobalBlock become even more relevant helping brands take a proactive stance across both traditional and emerging digital spaces.
Beyond the registration cost comparison, what's the exposure brands face if they don't act proactively?
The real issue today is exposure both in terms of brand risk and operational impact. When brands don’t act proactively, they leave gaps in their digital footprint that bad actors are quick to exploit. This can lead to phishing attacks, customer impersonation, fraud, and reputational damage often occurring before the brand even realizes there is a problem. Attackers can register and weaponize domains within hours even quicker now with AI. While remediation efforts such as takedowns, legal actions, and customer communications can take days or even weeks, the loss can be catastrophic during this time. lost revenue, diminished customer trust, or regulatory scrutiny, especially for publicly traded companies.
This approach becomes a constant, costly game of whack-a-mole that can seriously damage a brand’s bottom line.
This shifts the conversation from ‘what does it cost to protect?’ to ‘what’s the cost of being exposed?’ and that’s where the value of a proactive solution like GlobalBlock becomes unmistakably clear.
You've compared GlobalBlock to defensive registration, but there's also a third path: post-enforcement recovery such as UDRP filings. How does that approach stack up financially and what does it cost brands beyond the filing fee?
The UDRP process is inherently reactive, when you factor in legal counsel fees, evidence gathering, internal coordination, etc. the cost per dispute can easily run into thousands of dollars, especially if relying on external versus internal counsel. Essentially, you’re paying to fix a problem that could have been prevented with a holistic proactive solution.
Additionally, UDRP cases can take weeks or even months to resolve and of course, the damage continues to occur. The real cost lies in brand exposure, erosion of customer trust, and the drain on internal resources required to continually chase down these issues.
We are beginning to see a shift in mindset among our clients. By implementing proactive solutions like GlobalBlock, they can reduce their exposure and treat enforcement as a last line of defense rather than their first response.
What's your advice for a mid-sized brand that's sitting on the fence — maybe they own their .com and a handful of other registrations and feel reasonably covered. What are they missing?
We want to help our clients understand that owning a .com covers where the internet was but not where it’s going.
Owning your .com and a handful of key domains is a good foundation, but today’s risks don’t live in just a few obvious places. There are hundreds of domain extensions and emerging spaces like Web3, where bad actors can register lookalike or identical names within minutes. Defensively registering every possible variation just isn’t practical or cost-effective anymore. As a result, many brands believe they have it covered and stop there, but unfortunately, bad actors don’t. They go straight for the gaps. What they’re missing isn’t just individual domains, it’s a strategy: a way to extend protection across a broader digital footprint without adding complexity or cost at scale.
That’s where solutions like GlobalBlock change the conversation. It offers coverage beyond your core portfolio and helps close those blind spots, so you’re protected not only where you expect risk but also where new threats are emerging.
If there's one message you'd want every brand manager to walk away remembering from this conversation, what is it?
Be proactive, not reactive. The question isn’t how many domains you own, it’s how many you’ve left exposed. It only takes one missed domain to create a crisis, yet there are likely hundreds of potential registrations you’re not covering today. Instead of chasing down hundreds of registrations one by one, you can make one smart decision by choosing GlobalBlock.
GlobalBlock protects your brand across a broad digital footprint, closing gaps before bad actors can exploit them so you can focus on growth, not firefighting.
Tony Kirsch
