The group that manages the Internet’s domain name system is strongly defending a proposal approved in June that could lead to the introduction of hundreds or even thousands of new Internet domain names.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a California-based nonprofit, strongly defended both its process and policy in response to a letter last week from the Association of National Advertisers expressing strong concerns the domain name proposal.
The ANA, whose members include major U.S. corporations from Apple to Home Depot to Verizon, raised several issues, most notably the expense to trademark owners of having to defend their brands with the introduction of so many new domain names. ANA argues that many companies will feel compelled to apply for Internet addresses in most, if not all, of the new top-level domains or even apply—at a cost of $185,000 per domain name—to operate their own domain names. The ANA claims ICANN failed to follow its own rules requiring that its policies be developed and adopted through a bottom-up consensus-based process and called on ICANN to withdraw the proposal or work with trademark owners to dramatically revise it.
In its written response to the ANA sent on Tuesday, ICANN noted that Internet stakeholders such as the ANA and other trademark owners had ample time and opportunity to comment on the proposal and that many of the suggestions they made were included in the final proposal adopted in June.
“The assertions in your letter are either incorrect or problematic in several respects. Perhaps the most severe mischaracterizations concern the ICANN process,” ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom wrote.
He added, “The June 2011 decision to proceed with the program followed six years of inclusive policy development and implementation planning. Significant actions have been taken to balance the concerns of all interested parties, provide protections for rights holders, registrants, and users, and to ensure that the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet are not compromised.”
At the same time, Beckstrom indicated that ICANN is not backing down, vowing to “vigorously defend the multi-stakeholder model and the hard-fought consensus of its global stakeholder participants, its duty to act in accordance with established bottom-up processes, and its responsibility to the broad public interest of the global Internet community, rather than to the specific interests of any particular group."
ANA Executive Vice President Dan Jaffe said ANA is “disappointed” with ICANN’s response. “We do not believe it’s a proposal that is representative of the broad concerns of (the trademark owner) community.” He added that his group has heard from many other groups and associations who share the same concerns. Jaffe said that the ANA will continue to “look at all our options including regulatory, legislative, and legal.”
Among those sympathetic to the ANA’s concerns is the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, which includes nearly two dozen companies such as Dell, Nike, and Wells Fargo. The coalition, however, appears resigned to the fact that it is probably too late to stop the proposal. ICANN is set to begin taking applications for new domain names in January.
"CADNA agrees with many of the assertions the ANA made in its letter to ICANN, especially its challenge to ICANN’s supposed ‘bottom-up’ policy development process,” the coalition said in a statement.
But it added, “At this point, we have to focus on continuing to work to make sure new [domain names] are rolled out in a controlled, ordered way that does not introduce chaos to the domain name system and end up harming both Internet users and businesses who rely on the Internet."
ICANN was picked in 1998 by the U.S. government to take over management of the Internet’s domain name system. The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration currently oversees ICANN through a technical contract set to expire next year.
NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling told National Journal on Wednesday that while some governments may have had concerns with ICANN’s new domain name proposal, NTIA felt the process ICANN used to develop the measure was adequate and stressed that the ICANN Board was reasonably accommodating to issues raised by governments.
"Our role is not to substitute our judgment for ICANN's but rather to make sure that ICANN's decision-making process is open and provides opportunity for stakeholder input,” he said.
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