Defamation law in England tends to favour claimants, it was even a joke
in South Park (Tom Cruise shouting "I'm gonna sue you in England!").

Two elements need to be met for a claim in defamation, it must refer to
the claimant, and it must lower the claimant "in the estimation of
right-thinking members of society generally". My opinion being familiar
with the existing case law is that the registration of a .sucks domain
could meet these and other defamation requirements. 

For example, the threshold of what constitutes a defamatory statement is
very low, as evidence by the Lord McAlpine case where this tweet was
considered defamatory:
'Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*"
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2013/981.html

In my opinion, a defamation case has a high possibility of success in
England. This is not to say that it will happen, just that at least in
the UK it is a distinct possibility. It might be difficult to prove
damages though, but it might be possible to obtain injunctive relief.

Andres


On 28/03/2015 16:55, Nicolas Adam wrote:
> I guess there is a difference between successfully bringing up an
> action and standing a snowball's chance in hell of winning it on the
> strength of that sole registration fact, but I'm kind of hoping that
> registering is not the only threshold ....
>
>
> On 2015-03-27 7:26 AM, Andres Guadamuz wrote:
>> I had a class today exactly about this. I was joking to the students
>> if I should consider buying andresguadamuz.sucks and
>> andresguadamuz.porn, and we had an extensive discussion about whether
>> the above would be defamatory if someone else did it. Most of the
>> class thought that you could successfully bring up an action in
>> England for defamation just for registering the domain.
>>
>> I tend to agree.
>

-- 
Dr Andres Guadamuz
Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law
Room G17
Freeman Centre
University of Sussex
Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9QE

Tel. 01273 678629

http://ssrn.com/author=387238 
http://www.technollama.co.uk