According to several reports, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Jon Leibowitz said said today that a proposal to allow for an unlimited number of new Internet addresses could be a “disaster” for consumers and businesses.
The proposal would allow for almost any new top-level domain name, which is the suffix that comes to the right of the dot, such as .Law or .coke or .NYC.
In comments made to House Judiciary Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman hearing on antitrust enforcement the Chairman said:
“We are very, very concerned about the rollout of the new domain name proposal that has the potential to be a disaster for consumers and for businesses,” . “We see enormous costs to consumers and businesses and not a lot of benefits.”
Leibowitz said his concern was the effect the addition of hundreds of new TLDs might have on the agency’s ability to fight Internet fraud.
“We worry that if ICANN goes broadly and doesn’t ensure accuracy, it’s going to be exponentially worse. There is going to be a burden on businesses, which will have to defensively register. We see a lot of cost, but not a lot of benefit,”
Leibowitz told the subcommittee the FTC has been in talks with the Commerce Department, which manages a contract that ICANN needs to operate. The FTC also plans to speak with ICANN.
On Thursday the Senate Commerce Committee, will also hold a hearing on the new gTLD plan.
The House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications & Technology has also scheduled a hearing Dec. 14 on ICANN’s new gTLD program.
Of course the question that comes to my mind is where has the FTC been all these years while the plan has been discussed for years and there have been 6 prior versions of the Guidebook
In any even its about to get more interesting.
The FTC should also investigate VeriSign (and other registry operators) who have monopoly no-bid contracts with guaranteed price increases. Those are anti-competitive, and are costing consumers hundreds of millions of dollars per years in excess fees relative to competitive tender.
If the .com contract was rebid, certainly prices at the wholesale level would drop below $3/yr (from $8/yr). On a 100 million dot-coms, that’s $500 million/yr. Throw in .net and .org, who have similar sweet deals, and the savings are even bigger.
With Manwin re-opening the “anti-trust” issue again with ICANN over .XXX (CFIT tried before, but was outmuscled by VeriSign), it’s time that the FTC and DOJ took action.
Oh man I wish I had done law at skool 🙂
DotXXX is adding plenty of fuel to the fire here and ICANN may have wished they delayed dotXXX’s launch until next year. Many of the dotXXX registrations are purely defensive and they’re getting a lot of press (Penn State alone bought four names). THIS is the smoking gun. ICANN’s only defense seems to be, “Well, you had your chance to protest and it’s too late. Sorry!”
As complaints move further up the political food chain ICANN may find their defense start to crumble.
I second what George said. We’re being hugely overcharged on our domain registrations and the monopoly needs to get the boot.
Applications for gTLD IDNs: the biggest positive benefit from the program will likely come from the creation of Internet extensions in languages other than English. The highly US-focused ICANN has failed to recognise that value.
http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/12/02/senate-hearing-gtlds
I don’t think the new gtlds happen until ICANN comes up with a better plan on protecting trademark holders. As the previous poster said, xxx killed it for icann.
.xxx is just magnifying the holes for the new gtlds.
It’s not like widget company is going to spend 200 to protect reg’s of .nyc .nurse .cars and so on. Really the only gtld they would protect would have been porn related.
I 3rd what George said.
Thank you George.
Perhaps, CFIT can combine forces with MANWIN and force ICANN to put the dot-CM contract for re-bid next year.
CFIT has no money and dismissed there lawsuit against Verisign because they couldn’t continue to fight it
@There is going to be a burden on businesses, which will have to defensively register. We see a lot of cost, but not a lot of benefit,”
Spot on! IMO, had .XXX offered free or low cost trademark protection due to it’s very nature as a porn extension, I doubt if the FTC would be looking into this. There are a lot of businesses that are not happy about paying ICM for “protecting” their brand.
Yeah, I agree that .XXX added fuel to this fire.
The adult industry does not even support the extension.
What you have left is companies who’s only interest in the extension are defensive regs.
It did not help that the registry and registrars did so much promotion around “protecting your brand”. It creates a dangerous precedent for new extensions.
TM holders don’t need this crap over hundreds or thousands of extensions.
Most of the corporate interests have lined up against the new TLDs for a number of reasons.
The Senate Commerce Committee is holding a heading on the new extensions this week.
Brad
“where has the FTC been all these years while the plan has been
discussed for years and there have been 6 prior versions of the Guidebook”
FTC and Commerce Dept. might have been working behind the scene.
And, maybe Icann had been misleading them until Icann pulled the trigger.
All Icann cares about is the large bank account to pepetuate its
long term existance (and lifestyle).
Amen !
Verisign’s blatant & unjustified monopolistic pricing practices MUST be stopped ! … as well as ICANNt’s incestuous-like permitting & enabling of this.
Above and beyond CFIT efforts, it’s still kinda surprising that more evident vigorous and concerted efforts against this haven’t been made by more of the “giant” registrants who hold 100,00 to 1,000,000 domains in there portfolios….such as: NameMedia, Oversee, NameAdmin, Vertical Axis/Reinvent Tech, DemandMedia iReit, Domain Asset Holdings …..as the huge amout of renewal/reg fees as well as monopolistic price increases that they endure is staggering
“You had your chance to protest. It’s a little too late. Have you even read our New gTLD Guidebook? Sorry FTC.”
Not.
FTC +1
“where has the FTC been all these years while the plan has been
discussed for years and there have been 6 prior versions of the Guidebook”
This is the lame excuse thats being used time after time by those with a vested interest in the rollout of the new tlds to try and hang on to what they see as potential riches down the road.
The problem with this line of thinking is that ICANN doesnt exactly have a great record in terms of dealing and acting upon the info it recieves during the various comment periods it allows. They also have a strong history of caving in to the needs of those they were tasked with presiding over. Remember the verisign lawsuit that resulted in a monopoly and guaranteed price increases. Remember the xxx suit that resulted in the rollout of this unwanted extorsion scam! ICANN is a joke and the deals they cut I think were done for the sole purpose of preventing the “discovery” of their malpheasant ways by way of due process.
Whether you are on the side of the new tlds or against them, if your putting your faith in ICANN prepare to be dissapointed or worse. ICANN will take you on the honeymoon sure, but they will want to consumate the realtionship. Bring grease!
What can the FTC do to stop them?
They’re not federally funded and aren’t they an independent agency more-or-less?
Quite a lot, actually.
The DOC still holds the keys to the Root.
“The DOC still holds the keys to the Root.”
…a root.
There are a variety of endgames. As Yoda put it, “Always changing, the future is.”
@dcmike77, @Cartoonz
The FTC can’t do anything to stop it.
From the source Bloomberg article:
‘The FTC doesn’t have authority over Icann. The agency has the power to act when companies engage in unfair and deceptive trade practices.’
and the response to the FTC from Lawrence Strickling – Head of NTIA, who oversees the IANA Contract and the Root Zone File:
“The Commerce Department is “sensitive to the concerns being raised by some companies” about the introduction of the new top-level domains, Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Strickling said in an e-mail today.
“We will closely monitor the execution of the program and are committed to working with stakeholders, including U.S. industry, to mitigate any unintended consequences,” Strickling said, without elaborating.”
The head of the agency that ‘holds the keys’ is assuming that the program is going ahead, as scheduled. That is the only conclusion one can reasonable reach from his statements.
Applications for New gTLDs will open January 12.
We’ll see how it all pans out from there . . .
Per what always appears to be a well grounded George Kirikos —–
perseverance and staying power will be needed to prevail against the Verisign monoply.
Very likely could be one day you end up with a check from some kind of class action deal – but at the same time I am not basing the livlihood and success of my business on any of that kind of stuff that ultimately ends up on Anderson Oprah 360 !!!!
Unfortunately there was a bit of a spoon feeding of perspective from intellectual property interests leading into the comments that were made.
The FTC (and other three letter organizations) #1 complaint is in and around whois data being available and accurate. It is not a new concept, and the new TLDs are thick whois which resolves the majority of the pain that they currently experience.
The TLD Haters have taken the soundbites and leveraged them in numerous press releases to stoke the fire for the two hearings in Washington DC about the new TLD process, which are loaded with TLD Haters.
The new extensions will all crash and b
urn ala .mobi and .biz.
Don’t fall for the hype. The smart money will continue to stick w .com
I love TLD’s.
You can use your PC to make them — HOSTS file aliases or with a nameserver running on localhost — take your pick. It’s a useful way to organise information for fast connectionless retrieval. And it costs nothing beyond the price of your PC. DNS is a useful protocol.
But the people who try to make money from TLD’s, they are not so likeable.
.xxx is a perplexing idea when you think about it.
People who are searching for porn will jump through hoops.
If you told them in order to get to their porn they have to change their DNS settings to a special .xxx DNS server, do you think they would comply? It only takes a matter of seconds.
History has shown that people seeking internet porn will download untrusted programs, they will endure pop-up and malware-infested websites, and they will learn to use complex filesharing techniques like bittorrent.
How difficult is it to change DNS settings?
Anyone can run a .xxx nameserver. They could create countless pornographic “generic search words” (someword.xxx) and point them at the IP’s for established content sites like Manwin’s. http servers can be set to accept any hostname and the ones serving porn are doubtfully going to be fussy. http servers that handle 1000’s of 302 redirects are another option.
All users have to do is change their DNS settings, and then they could make use of any .xxx nameserver on the Internet, gaining access to a hidden wealth of type-into-the-address-bar searchable adult content. Why use ICM’s nameservers? The major adult content providers are not interested in ICM’s extortionist scheme.
Have fun.
The reason that the registry are monopolies is from a technical point of view. It would not be good for the internet to have .coms (for example) registered over 500 different registries and to be able to manage that. We’d have a lot of problems with the internet if all of the TLDs were split over multiple companies/registries.
I can see why the .XXX domains were defensively registered too as its clear its going to be porn based and not many companies will want to be associated with that. As for the other TLDs, there might be a few relevant to each business but not many. e.g. Nike is not going to have to register nike.LAW
The new gTLDs should be better for all companies making use of them because they will always be in context and will offer better search engine optimisation. e.g. flowers.nyc would come up high in organic search results for “Flower shops in New York”. This will be a competitive advantage and will save some costs on SEO and increase profits from higher visitor numbers. It will be a major boost for those with their own gTLDs, e.g. home.nike would always come out on top.
Its also good for marketing campaigns, e.g. running a new tv ad and directing customers http://tvoffer.nike would be able to tell you much more accurately how effective that ad was – which is difficult to do at the moment.
Lets not forget new start ups get to choose a domain which bears a good relevance to their business (rather than something that bares only a vague resemblance due to shortages).
@SenseCommon –
“But the people who try to make money from TLD’s, they are not so likeable. ”
Good God Almighty – what interplanetary world of non-free-enterprise do you live in.
Its probably the same for those sleazy Real Estate brokers and Real Estate investors too – yes ????
“The new extensions will all crash and burn ala .mobi and .biz.”
In what respect, Charlie?
They work just fine. What I find interesting is that TLD applicants are all evil, presumably because they’d like to make money, but if a TLD does not become a cash cow, then it is a “failure”.
There is nothing crashed and burned about .mobi or .biz. They are there if someone wants to use them, but nobody is putting a gun to anyone’s head.
And, taking .biz and .mobi as an example, how many UDRP cases or IP lawsuits have there been over .biz or .mobi domains? Practically none.
if i want to buy nike, and i want to call the nike store (or some other dealer), it’s somewhat useful and perhaps persuasive if they have a vanity telephone such as 1-800-GET-NIKE or some other easy to remember combination of digits.
it’s also potentially useful and persuasive if they are listing number one or have a full page ad on the first page in the relevant yellow pages section.
but ultimately, i am shopping based on brand: nike. i just need the number for the nike store. i’m ready to go there. and i want the number fast with no hassle. it’s a pretty simple thing. i need a number.
so i look up the ip number for nike store in the telephone book. i make the call. i go to the store. done.
the web can work the same way. you start with the name of a business. you look up its number. and you make the connection to the website. done.
moreover, the web allows a business to put many stores behind one number. in http parlance, we call these “hostnames.” using the same number, but a different hostname, can connect you to a “different” store. but there’s no rule that says you have to do that.
if i want a list of nyc florists with their telephone numbers and addresses, and nothing more, why shouldn’t i go to the online yellow pages for nyc? they have that info. and they should be a reliable, up-to-date source.
why should i use a search engine to search billions of irrelevent web pages? i just want a list of nyc florists. it’s a pretty simple thing.
a search engine is unpredictable in terms of what it might return. there is endless seo gamesmanship.
and then you have review sites that are extorting money from local businesses to hide negative reviews.
is this system helpful to the consumer? maybe it is. maybe it’s not.
maybe i’m wrong but i think consumers want things simple. they want them fast. and they want them reliable and trustworthy.
available technology does not impede this sort of simplicity. it enables it. of course, it also enables a considerable amount of complexity.
use the technology however you wish.
consumers will decide what they like best.
That’s a bit of a strange comment – simple and you’ve confused me! You talk about looking for the phone number via the yellow pages (central store of some kind) as an analogy for how the web works, but then go back to saying that you would still use the yellow pages (online) after bringing the search engine into the equation?
I can only presume that you’re of an older generation – not a bad thing at all. Your intention of the post is to say, why can’t I get the phone number via a reputable source which is there for that purpose, rather than searching the internet.
For a start, the only reason to get a phone number these days is to complain or when you have run out of options on the internet. Most people prefer to just buy online now – but I don’t think that’s your point. Even if they DID want the phone number, its EASIER to find it on the internet! Why go to yell.com and search when you can go straight to google and find it in a step less (plus be provided with a map to its location, etc).
The reason google is so successful is because, for the vast majority of the time, it yields great results. This is why you’ll search for the florist – it is easier!
The new gTLDs will make search engines more important. At the moment, if I wanted to see the Nike website, I would either stick .com at the end of the brand name (nike.com) or just search for nike on google and click the first link.
In 2-3 years time, people will always take the step of searching for a new site (until they favourite/remember it), because it may not be a .com any more (Chances are they will still hold the .com – but what about in 5 years time?). They’ll then click the first link.
I think that the gTLDs will allow businesses to pick a name which really focuses on what they do, which will help them make more money. So many modern sites now just make up words because there are no good .coms left, a few examples would be bebo, bing, tumblr, etc.
As time goes on, the younger generations (Who appear to live on the likes of Facebook) will purely go for the search engine approach. They’ve been brought up on it and know everything about it. At the moment, most people over 35-40 have had to go back and learn the internet to really get it – and, certainly the ones I know, are very glad they did so!
When the rest of the world progresses and the number of online users increases by hundreds of millions. The .coms will not be enough (Why should they even use our character sets!?). gTLDs are a good thing and whether we do it now or later it has to be done.
G. The telephone stuff is just an analogy. Most people understand not only how to use a telephone but they also understand how it works.
They understand that you need both a name and a number. The days of using a switchboard operator are long gone.
Today, with only a name, in order to get a number you have to waste time calling directory assistance, searching the phone book, searching Google, or whatever.
Unlike the telephone, most people do *not* understand how the internet and web works. They might know how to use it, but they do not know how it works.
For example, they might think that to visit a website all one needs is a name.
The two technologies, phone and internet, are similar in some basic respects: they are both dependent upon networks that rely on numbers.
Before you can use either them you must have a number.
Names are not enough.
Hence the goal is the same whether you are calling a business on the telephone (like in the old days) or visiting their website. You must first get their number.
And given the choice I believe people are likely to choose the *fastest*, *easiest* way to do that. Right now, there is little choice. ICANN DNS is all people know. But it is by no means all that technology would allow.
In our telephone analogy, the number you need is called a telephone number. In the case of the internet and web, it’s called an IP number.
Your original comment suggested that registries need to be monopolies “from a technical point of view”.
But what does this have to do with getting numbers?
Should the yellow pages, as a source of numbers, be a monopoly? In the US and some other countries, the courts have said no.
Should TLD registries, as source of numbers, be monopolies? Why?
Consider also that these registries do not themselves even have the IP numbers. They only have the contact information of someone else to contact in order to get them. Referrals.
Also your point about new gTLD’s providing names for startups is rather weak in the context of a discussion of new gTLD’s whose financial success and hence raison d’etre relies on selling defensive registrations to established businesses that already have registered names in .com
It would be be nice to think that new gTLD’s were aimed at selling to startups, but the reality is startups still want names in .com. Otherwise they would not complain about domainers who sell them these names and the prices they set.