Brand Owners Fight gTLD Expansion
16 November 2012
A letter signed by more than 100 companies, including the BBC, Ford, Microsoft, FedEx, Red Bull, the Body Shop and Visa, says that ICANN’s plan to expand the generic top-level domain (gTLD) will result in threats to consumer health and safety.
Traditionally, gTLDs, such as .com and .gov, were required to be approved by ICANN. Under the expanded gTLD system, companies could register any combination of letters, such as .msn for Microsoft or .fedex for the package delivery company.
ICANN says the expansion “will allow for more innovation, choice and change to the internet’s addressing system, now constrained by only 21 generic top-level domain names” and that the expansion will “promote competition in the domain-name marketplace while ensuring internet security and stability.” The gTLD application process would be open to any user willing to pay a US$185,000 application fee.
Irfan Salim, MarkMonitor president and CEO, and author of the co-signed letter, said the plan poses serious risks to IP owners, including the risk it poses to the health and safety of consumers.
A recent survey of brand owners by domain name registrar Melbourne IT found that a majority of respondents believe that the expanded gTLD system will result in confusion for internet users and increased costs, and do not believe that a brand name gTLD will reduce the need for other domain name types. Half do believe that a brand name gTLD will offer protection against typo and cybersquatting. Fourteen percent of respondents told Melbourne IT they would likely pursue their own brand gTLD as soon as possible.
The letter from MarkMonitor and the hundred co-signers to ICANN noted that brand abuse would likely “increase exponentially” under the expanded gTLD system. “Consumers are the ultimate victims of these abuses and they suffer loss of their time, money and even health and safety,” the letter said.
