Several years ago, we were challenged by GoDaddy Registry leadership to find ways to innovate in the domain name space.
The industry has suffered from a lack of innovation for decades, but we were up for the challenge posed by our leadership. It took a thorough examination of how the ecosystem operates to determine how we could better serve the industry.
Today, with the launch of GlobalBlock, we can now share with the community the result of our journey of discovery. The road between the initial challenge and the launch we are celebrating today was long and winding – but the result of this journey is one of our most rewarding achievements to date.
Where it started
Collectively, we have almost 40 years of domain industry experience: from working with corporate registrars and assisting in the management of large domain portfolios; to working with hundreds of registries, and brands around the world. These varied but complementary perspectives made us an ideal team to tackle the task we had in front of us.
It was immediately clear however, that we couldn’t be the only voices in the conversation. Our work began by speaking with large corporations and the businesses that service them to better understand their needs and the challenges they faced.
After dozens of interviews with the community we hoped to serve, a common theme emerged: the desire for a simplified and more effective approach to brand protection. We learned that brands are dealing with new threats in an evolving industry, and they are struggling to manage as the budgets to deal with these threats continue to shrink. Brands must navigate countless providers, services, rules and conditions, pricing, and technology offerings.
Primarily, we heard there was opportunity – and a desperate need – to be more customer-led in the way we protect intellectual property online.
Gathering steam: How GlobalBlock became bigger than ‘just us’
In terms of domain portfolio management and brand protection, we concluded the best approach was to develop a domain blocking service. While not a new concept, we identified the opportunity to work at a much larger scale than what was available in the market. We were faced with a truly global problem in trying to help brand owners protect their identities, and it became clear that a global solution was required.
So began the colossal effort of sharing our vision, building connections across the industry and bringing more and more partners on board.
To bring this vision to the market we started the Brand Safety Alliance (a GoDaddy Registry Initiative), a new organization dedicated to developing innovative digital brand protection solutions for brand owners and supported by dozens of other industry leading organizations including Identity Digital, GMO Registry, Nominet, Tucows, Unstoppable Domains, CORE and CoCCA.
Many people have asked, why now?
In the majority of the conversations we had with the community, we received positive feedback, and it became clear our concept had merit and was worthy of further exploration.
With a next round of TLDs on the horizon, the advent of Web 3.0, and a customer base increasingly frustrated with today’s rights protection mechanisms, we knew the time was right to develop and launch GlobalBlock.
Building GlobalBlock and looking ahead
Our team worked tirelessly to develop the BSA Gateway, which is the platform Accredited Agents utilize to access GlobalBlock and its many features.
The system is a combination of a unique protection engine paired with robust technology connecting domain registries around the world, both large and small. The result is an offering that covers nearly 600 extensions today with more coming online soon. GlobalBlock provides significant operational efficiencies and in one single transaction brands get comprehensive protection without having to directly engage with dozens of Registries.
We just concluded our one-month GlobalBlock Beta Program with 30+ accredited agents already offering the service to their clients. This is an exciting milestone to reflect upon and to celebrate what we have collectively achieved.
The BSA team looks forward to serving the needs of brand owners today and beyond. We are thrilled and grateful to mark this milestone today and look forward to sharing more of what is to come in future.
Welcome to GlobalBlock!
Tony Kirsch
