ICANN's New gTLD Proposal Faces Stiff Opposition

ICANN’s proposal to begin accepting applications of new generic top-level domains (gTLD) has received strong opposition from both the global business community and governments. These organizations have used ICANN’s public forum format to voice their concerns about the new gTLD’s.

US Government Voices Concerns over New gTLD Proposal

Of the over 200 comments filed online, the United States Government voiced its concerns in two letters. One of the letters, written by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), criticized the ICANN staff for failing to conduct a detailed study of the costs and benefits, such as adverse competitive effects that the introduction of new gTLD’s would have on businesses. Other comments concerned a requirement that ICANN ensure the global business community that the introduction of a large number of new gTLD’s would not jeopardize the stability and security of the Domain Name System, that ICANN would implement competitive bidding mechanisms, and place maximum price caps or other terms to protect consumers. Another area of concern is that ICANN focus its efforts on technical functions related to the management of the Domain Name System and leave matters such as the adjudication of morality and public order to be addressed by governments.

Outpour of Public Interest in New gTLD Proposal

Other contributors to the public forum included additional government entities such as the Government Advisory Committee and the Australian Government. Comments were also submitted from the global business community with entries by corporate giants such as 3M, Costco, eBay, FedeX, Nike, and Verizon. Even the banking industry took notice of ICANN’s proposal and concerns were voiced by economiesuisse, GE Money, Bank of America, and Visa.

“It is interesting to see the outpouring of comments from the business community,” said Darin M. Klemchuk, trademark trial lawyer of Klemchuk LLP in Dallas, Texas. “It will be even more interesting to see how ICANN reacts to these comments and which of them it will incorporate into its next revision of the proposal.”

Potential Impact of New gTLD

The introduction of new gTLD’s could have a significant impact on both large and small companies who wish to engage in defensive brand protection by registering a variety of domain names that could infringe on their trademark if used by third parties. If a new gTLD is added, such as .search, a particular company would have to re-register all of the previous variations of its brand in the new gTLD category. “This can result in significant added expenses for a company,” observed Mr. Klemchuk. “Many smaller businesses may not be able to afford these added expenses or could better use the money toward other more proactive ways to improve their branding.  The added costs for domain name acquisition could be high.”

With the forum for comments now closed, the private and public sector must now await the next revision of ICANN’s Draft Application Guidebook that is due in late February 2009 to see what ICANN’s next steps in the proposal to introduce new gTLD’s will be.

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