ICANN's gTLD Proposal - good for Bank Account ICANN or benefit to Internet users?

Remember when you were young, making mud pies in the backyard after a rain, and not knowing what you would do with the cake afterwards? Yeah, well, that's kind of what ICANN has proposed to open the doors for unlimited expansion of generic top-level domains (gTLDs).

ICANN stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Essentially, this is fancy verbiage which literally translates to ICANN to be the big cheese of the Internet. The non-profit organization that is supposed to bring order to the Internet, mediate disputes between domain owners and first generic top level domains such as regulatory or.net as.com.

As a lawyer, trademark, our customers face the constant struggle to try to monitor the use of their trademarks in domain names on a daily basis. This is a long and costly process. It 'also heartbreaking for customers who have invested energy in creating a livelihood around a word or phrase, which is then used by someone else to pass-off or similar competing products worldwide. If this process of monitoring is expensive now, when there are only a few generic top level domains, you can imagine what will happen when gTLDs can be completely customized? It 'amazing and probably the biggest mud pie no one has ever done.

The President of the International Trademark Association, Richard Heath, has recently indicated its position to the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy on the Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives. Heath has expressed the opinion of the INTA that ICANN did not provide sufficient guidance on how to brand owners will be protected.

Heath communication can be viewed at the following address: http://www.inta.org/index.php?option=com_contentandtask=viewandid=2015andItemid=152andgetcontent=3

INTA also communicated their position to the CEO of ICANN, Rod Beckstrom: http://www.inta.org/index.php?option=com_contentandtask=viewandid=2016andItemid=152andgetcontent=3

Brand owners need more assurance that their rights will be protected before more gTLDs were created. Otherwise, it appears that ICANN is simply trying to increase their importance in the world of the Internet, as well as fees of Registrars, rather than looking out for the interests of the owners of the domain.

Someone Pies? ......