The Wall Street Journal is reporting several major companies are protesting the new gTLD extensions.
Verizon Communications, Marriott International and New York Life Insurance are among the companies arguing that the new domain extensions could open the flood gates to Internet fraud and drastically increase their costs of doing business online.
“Companies are in a difficult position. In one sense, they may feel compelled to register their crown jewels in all these locations because if they don’t, an infringer will come along, and you will have to deal with the consequences. But at the same time, it’s a huge waste of corporate resources,” says Sarah Deutsch, vice president and associate general counsel at Verizon.
The Journal reports that companies are debating whether they should buy up the rights to operate their own brand-specific domains, such as .marriott or .nylife and looking at registering their trademarks for more generic domains. For example, Marriott is considering acquiring the rights to Marriott.nyc, Marriott.travel or Marriott.vacations.
“””The bigger issue for companies probably would be more-generic domains like .bank, which could attract interest from multiple parties and spark bidding wars.
The companies that end up operating such domains are expected to offer trademark owners the chance to register their trademarks early for about $500 per domain, about 10 times as much as the price to the public.””””
A typical company might register 20 sites within each new top-level domain, making the total cost to participate in all 200 of them $2 million, says Josh Bourne, managing partner of FairWinds Partners, an Internet-strategy consulting firm and a member of CADNA
According to the Journal, industry executives say consumers are likely to stick with .com’s, so they expect the new domains to have little business purpose.
“”””Web surfers are more apt to continuing visiting sites with the standard .com suffix, such as NYLife.com, instead of visiting a Web site with the address customerservice.nylife, says New York LIfe’s Mr. Hittel.”””
“It is difficult enough to get consumers to visit any domain name that doesn’t end with .com,” he says.
The Journal points out that companies have been through this before, with the launch of such domain extensions like .asia or .eu. They bought up hundreds of thousands of domains pre-emptively but say these sites either sit dormant or fail to generate traffic.
The lines have always been clearly defined. dot com & country codes are accepted as Brands. Non descriptive single words – terms can be trademarked in their respective categories.
Every company or private individual can register a trademark. International – national protocols are set. The TM search databases are available to all,
The TM’s have statutory rights enforceable in the small claims courts .
If I buy faulty goods the shop is reasonable for its goods and services ? time for CADNA to bring a test case against the accredited seller?
You can register the —— .com . co.uk with a TM
The TM is important and will continue to protect the rights of registrants. What would domainers think of someone who decided that a new right of way / public footpath was available across your garden ?
If you have the TM why would anyone want to register dot whatever and play the new ICCAN monopoly game. I have three registered TM’s with all the rights in law originally attributed to them, I do not need to register any domain extensions, I will write to any company or individual who uses, abuses or infringes my TM and that will include ICCAN with any new gtld extensions.
The gtld extensions are the Emperors new clothes and you will be taken to task for indecent exposure
Great post – 2009 the year of the New Domain Extensions – bring it on
FYI…
If anyone is looking into getting involved in this subject and needs a domain, TLDauction.com and TLDlist.com are available.
15% donated to ICA…
I see the future of the Internet with the new domains as a way to structure the information source like a library or a bookstore. With added categories and organization, we may start to look for health related questions in .health or searches on search.health. The same would occur with .auto or .cars for automotive questions and information.
Currently, we need the search engines to find information, but who has time to look at the millions of responses that are given in return.
We need to start thinking not only, “What am I looking for? But, Where should I go to look for it?”
Empedocles
No one is saying that existing TM laws will not cover the new extensions.
The point is a company like Microsoft with thousands of trademarks may find itself having to spend millions of dollars to register its marked over hundreds of new extensions. The new domains will not add traffic or value to them, so it comes right off their bottom line in at a time where many large companies are cutting 10% of their workforce in cost savings measures
Good, I hope more companies follow, its a silly idea and waaay to hard to put into action.
The main people that will benefit if they go ahead with it are Verizon, Lawyers, Parking companies and squatters.
..either way I don’t think it’s much of a threat to .com and ccTLD’s
Sorry, I meant ICANN 🙂
Heidi… you are kidding? 🙂
.travel sucks
.eu sucks
.mobi sucks
…everything else that will come if it shall won’t get far
and I agree with MHB — we do not need any more tlds… we need more clear rules and better control over the existing space. doh!
Heidi –
Your library/bookstore concept is already in place.
Using your specific examples on health, auto or car-related info, check out:
health.com
auto.com
cars.com
I think you’ll find what you’re looking for.
MBH I do not understand your comment.
my post ref “registered TM’s with all the rights in law originally attributed to them, I do not need to register any domain extensions” Why should Microsoft register more domains ? The first TM infringement letter is a warning, the second will include costs (fees)
Empedocles
First of all most of the really abusive trademark abusers are located outside the US, have false whois and are basically untraceable and/or uncollectable.
So the first letter gets no response as does the second, so the trademark holder than has to file a UDRP and get a default judgment at a costs of thousands of dollars per domain.
Therefore most find they HAVE to register every valuable trademark in every extension, although they have no use or need for them.
Although very expensive, its cheaper than paying their attorney to send out letters and file suits and UDRP for hundreds or thousands of domains
I agree with Mike. It is till the wild west out there on the current extensions. These new ones just move us several steps backwards. Creating a predictable, stable domain environment, including continued disincentives for cybersquatting, move the domain market towards higher levels of legitimacy. More extensions just moves us back towards instability on trademark protection issues.
Yea , I like my extension…
mydomain dot bullshitwebsites
Companies need to need to figure a way to market their products better and education is the key.
MHB
United States of America is a party to the Madrid Protocol, The WIPO-administered Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks offers a route to trademark protection in multiple countries. The fact that a small number of trademark abusers are located outside the US, have false whois or are untraceable and/or non-collectable is true but that does not mean we do not abide by and update the existing international rule of law to this digital generation. National TM attorneys will have to be trained to deal with the technology that has no national trade borders but will uphold the national rule of law through the existing international agreements.
There is no sense in “HAVE to register every valuable trademark in every extension” ICANN would keep on selling a virtual plot for as long as the admin costs were covered and domains keep watering down the value of the .com / country code brand
Updating the existing national laws to deal with technology that has no trade borders through international trade agreements is what will happen.
It seems to me that CADNA is growing as professional organisation because it has become a necessity, TM’ s registered by large companies or individuals will be protected, generics will not be issued with trademarks.
The domain dot com & country code brand, national / international brand names will be all the public and search engines take note of until whenever protocols change.
MHB It is not good enough to say he gets away with it so should I.