2014-11-03

ICANN’s New gTLD Domain Names, Are Top Brands Even Interested?

Short Answer: No, except for defensive registrations (trademark protection). ICANN's extortionate money-grab (for itself and its "customers"--see below) has produced nothing in the way of innovation but has produced a lot of fertile ground for cybercrime and cybersquatting!

ICANN New generic Top-Level Domains (new gTLDs) program--

".... Interest and Adoption by Top Brands--World Trademark Review (WTR) recently explored the .xyz [the new gTLD with most registrations] domain registration of the 50 most valuable brands and found that 80% had either registered or blocked their brand in this space. WTR’s review also found evidence of prevalent cybersquatting; for example, a single individual currently owns the domains names “americanexpress,” “honda,” and “homedepot” in the .xyz space. In general, the levels of brand adoption and interaction with the gTLD program overall remains inconsistent, with some brands significantly more pro-active than others in their fields. Even when it comes to the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH), companies traditionally known for brand protection, including RedBull, Nintendo, and Blackberry have evidently decided not to register their marks with this rights protection database...." --October 10, 2014, Monica Riva Talley, Trademark Attorney, ICANN’s gTLD Program – A Look Back and Forward | Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.LC. - JDSupra

In the new gTLDs program, ICANN intentionally put all the burden and extra costs on business and brand/trademark owners just so that ICANN and its "customers" (the registries, registrars, and their service providers) could make more money. Remember: "It's all about the money, They [ICANN] are creating these [new gTLD domain] extensions because they can." [Source: University of Pennsylvania Wharton School marketing professor Peter Fader, co-director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative]


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