We sat with Brand Safety Alliance Co-Founder Tony Kirsch to learn how you can move faster and stay ahead of bad actors who threaten your brand reputation and IP protection online.
Key takeaways:
- Every business is a target of bad actors determined to use domain names for brand impersonation and reputational harm. Small and mid-sized brands face the same domain and IP risks as enterprises.
- Modern threats move too fast, and reactive brand protection is no longer enough.
- Proactive domain blocking stops potential brand damage before it occurs. Solutions like GlobalBlock remove thousands of risky domains from getting sold to bad actors at a fraction of the cost of manual registration or legal recovery.
Hosted by Caroline Kay (Head of Platinum Program, Network Solutions), the webinar with Brand Safety Alliance Co-Founder Tony Kirsch emphasized the importance of proactive brand protection through GlobalBlock. This initiative comes at a time of rising online threats, evolving attack methods, and AI-powered abuse.
During the session, Kirsch highlighted: “The landscape is changing… in a pretty dramatic way. It’s a pivotal time for brand protection.” And in a world where threats evolve faster than ever, that importance is only growing.
Let’s delve into how GlobalBlock, the world’s first proactive brand security solution, is rewriting the rules of the game and how it can help you secure your brand in 2026 and beyond.
Stop attacks before they start
Securing your intellectual property is about taking control early, because the traditional “reactive” model for brand protection often acts too late. Specifically, they typically rely on a slow process of:
- Monitoring domains
- Filing takedowns
- Pursuing legal action
“The attack has already happened—and in some cases, the bad actors have even moved on to the next attack,” Kirsch explains. By the time action is taken, the damage, whether financial, reputational, or operational, has already been done.
Businesses of all sizes are at risk
While many assume that high-level security is only for the world’s largest corporations and enterprises, the reality is that impersonators don’t discriminate. Kirsch notes that while they initially saw this as a “Fortune 1000 type product,” that is not what materialized.
Instead, the biggest growth comes from mid-sized businesses and growing brands that may not have dedicated security teams. The bottom line: No one is immune to domain and IP abuse, and everyone needs to prepare.
A proactive approach to brand security
This is where a proactive strategy flips the script. Instead of chasing threats after they appear, this method removes domains from the public market before bad actors can ever register them. The results speak for themselves: over the last two years, GlobalBlock has blocked over 10 million domain names from public access.
“We block those domains; we remove them from availability,” Kirsch emphasizes in simple terms what GlobalBlock’s core mission is. By eliminating availability at the source, businesses can:
- Neutralize threats: Domains used for phishing or impersonation are never accessible to scammers.
- Prevent brand abuse: Impersonators cannot register harmful variations of your brand name.
- Reduce risk early: You mitigate potential damage before it materializes.
In short, shifting from defense to offense ensures your brand remains protected and resilient online. This approach transforms brand protection from a constant game of catch-up into a streamlined, automated shield that secures your reputation around the clock.
Most businesses opt for “maximum” protection
To combat sophisticated scams, most businesses are moving beyond the standard exact-match protection. In fact, 80% of customers now choose an enhanced level of protection (GlobalBlock+) to safeguard against domain impersonators (e.g., replacing “o” with “0”) and international character variations.
GlobalBlock offers effective protection on its two tiers:
- GlobalBlock: This “standard” plan covers 700+ domains, including 684 legacy extensions (nTLDs, gTLDs, and ccTLDs) and nearly 100 Web3 blockchain domains.
- GlobalBlock+ (Plus): This extends the “standard” coverage to an average of 50,000 or more domains by blocking homoglyphs and confusable characters (e.g., replacing “o” with “0”).
Unmatched efficiency and scale
One of the most compelling highlights of the webinar was the sheer efficiency of a proactive approach compared to traditional domain purchasing. To achieve the same level of security by purchasing domains individually, a business would have to manage thousands of separate registrations.
But, as emphasized earlier, GlobalBlock does that at scale in one place for a fraction of the cost and with greater efficiency than “buying” domains separately. To put that into perspective:
- GlobalBlock: For the 780 domains in a standard portfolio, individual retail costs could reach tens of thousands of dollars.
- GlobalBlock+ (Plus): For an enhanced portfolio covering 50,000+ variations, the retail value of buying those domains individually could be in the millions.
Key features that strengthen your defense
Beyond the broad coverage of a proactive approach, this strategy offers specific advantages that traditional manual monitoring cannot match. These automated tools act as a constant digital sentry that ensures your brand’s security without increasing your team’s workload.
- Priority Auto-Catch: The system actively monitors and captures risky domains the moment a scammer fails to renew them. “We will catch that domain… and add it to your portfolio free of charge,” says Kirsch.
- Flexible activation: You maintain total control, with the ability to “unblock” and activate a domain instantly for new campaigns while ensuring the domain never hits the public market.
- Domain assurance: It acts as a safety net for your assets. “If you forget to renew [a domain], we’ll catch that domain and add it back to your portfolio,” Kirsch added.
Preparing for the “what’s next” and Web3
Looking ahead, Kirsch highlights two major shifts coming to the internet, emphasizing that the domain industry is currently in a “pivotal time” of expansion:
- The 2027 expansion: Hundreds of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) will hit the market starting in 2027. This expansion often triggers a “gold rush” for squatters looking to snatch up brand names in new namespaces like .app or .shop. A proactive approach allows you to secure “pre-emptive protection,” ensuring your brand is never available for purchase in these new areas before the rush even begins.
- Web3 futureproofing: Through partnerships with providers like Unstoppable Domains, businesses can now protect their marks in the emerging blockchain-based “alternative internet.” Kirsch describes this as a critical “insurance policy.” Unlike the traditional internet, Web3 is decentralized; once a third party registers a blockchain domain name like YourBrand.crypto, it is virtually impossible to recover it. Being first to secure your brand is often the only reliable way to protect it.
By addressing these shifts now, your business can avoid the “reactive” trap of paying expensive legal fees or filing recovery claims later. You are future-proofing your brand so that when the internet doubles in size in 2027, your reputation is already secure.
The real barrier is priority, not awareness
The webinar highlighted a striking insight: businesses aren’t unaware of these risks—they are just underprioritizing them. Kirsch put it bluntly: “I don’t think that there’s a misconception… I think it’s a budget issue.” Too often, brand protection is treated as a secondary line item. But as AI accelerates the speed at which bad actors can generate and deploy malicious content, this mindset must change.
“Data is gold” when protecting your brand online
The webinar concluded with a clear message: brand protection is no longer about keeping up but staying ahead. As threats grow more sophisticated and bad actors move faster than ever, your defense must be even faster. With a proactive shield, you are managing risks and eliminating them before they materialize.
Don’t wait for a security breach to act. Call our Platinum team at 866-642-2180 to claim your free vulnerability report and take your proactive step today.
