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takyon writes:

ICANN has been asked by its formal advisory body, the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC), to investigate Vox Populi Registry Inc. for alleged wrongdoing in regards to the ".sucks" gTLD.

According to the BBC:

Specialist online website Domain Incite reports that actor "Kevin Spacey, Microsoft, Google and Apple have already bought up '.sucks' sites in a bid to protect their reputations". This practice is known as "defensive registering".

Icann granted Vox Populi permission to sell the ".sucks" names but is now concerned at the price levels the Canadian company has set. Kevin Murphy, from Domain Incite, told the BBC two key elements of the way Vox Populi was handling the sale were causing concern.

"They are charging a $2,000 'sunrise' premium to those wishing to register '.sucks' addresses early, before the addresses go on sale to the general public [next month]," he said. "Also they are using a list of words or names that have been defensively registered in the past, for which they are charging the top amount."

Mr Murphy said the company was working from a list of keywords that had been part of web addresses bought up early on in similar new domain web address sales and using that to decide which ".sucks" addresses to charge more for.

Although ICANN has been urged to end the shakedown by the likes of US Senator Jay Rockefeller, the CEO of Vox Populi has defended .sucks, claiming that the pricing strategy was intended to strike a balance between the rights of trademark holders and the ability of critics to lampoon people and brands, as originally intended by Ralph Nader when his group Consumer Project for Technology proposed the TLD back in 2000.