TheDomains.com has learned that Verisign (VRSN) the company that operates the .Com registry has filed objections to the new gTLD application of .Cam and .Bom, claiming that they are confusingly similar to .Com.
None of the objections are posted on the websites of the providers who will be administering the objections but the applicants have been notified of the objections.
In the case of .Cam the term has substantial meaning on its own and have become one of the most popular type of sites on the Internet.
There are three applications for .Cam one by Demand Media, Inc. (DMD) one by Famous Four and one by a applicant in the Netherlands.
According to our source, Verisign is citing a survey of 400 internet users and argue that 39% were confused between .cam and .com.
Verisign filed another objection on the new gTLD application for .Bom
The only applicant for .Bom is Núcleo de Informação e Coordenação do Ponto BR – NIC.br .
Bom is the Portuguese translation for Good.
According to the information TheDomains.com received Verisign has objected to any three letter new gTLD’s in which two of the letters are “c” “o” and/or “m” when those letters appear in the same position as in .Com.
As there is only one other objection filed for string confusion currently listed on the site of the organization who will be dealing with these objections, Verisign may well wind up being the company filing the most objections.
Of course if the Verisign objections are not reflected yet, although the ICANN objection period ended on March 13th, you have to wonder how many other objections have been filed but not yet reflected on the official sites.
We will keep you updated.
.bom = good, so it’s good versus evil yet again.
Seriously? Now that is a whimper of an objection if ever I heard one… surely Verisign can do better than that? It is a serious threat to their business. Or are they too busy hiding their own greed and bad management?
One would have thought that they are very well aware of how protectionism works…
.bom? Seriously? You couldn’t make up some of the sillyness going on…
I agree with these objections. .Cam is far too close to .com and as the largest TLD out there by far – this extension has big risk to the world. It is too similar and will most definitely be used for phishing and other nefarious activities. It is also not a good extension because it most likely will have a large percentage of the registrations being defensive registrations – to protect against misuse. I don’t care if it is a valid term. Go use .webcam. Or go use .camera. But .cam should be off limits for sure!
As for .bom…. While not as adamant, I still agree with this objection. .com is the largest extension and SHOULD BE PROTECTED more than anything else. I do agree .bom is a little more different from .com than .cam. However, to protect the world against misuse, this one applicant should be denied to protect 100 million other people/companies out there! If I were Verisign I would put legal mussel behind this (even if it costs $5 million dollars to fight) to pretty much make sure the applicant for .bom does not find it worth their while.
VeriSign is the protectorate of .com, and therefore I truly appreciate their filing these objections!
I guess that’l prolly preclude .Get – .Wet – .Vet – .Bet and .Ned from being accepted in the 2nd Batch of new gTLDs because of Verisigns’s .NET
Viva .NET !!!
—–
as for .Cam …. Is’t that how they pronounce .Com in Boston ?? — 🙂
Jnet
Well your not going to have to wait until the 2nd round for all of those, there are 4 applications for .bet filed in this round
we will see what Verisign did
The applicant for .bom is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to foster Internet growth, so simple cost-benefit analysis won’t apply here. It’s easier for an organization with a purpose to go the way of the just and keep fighting.
Also, it’s the 2nd largest registry in revenues, second only to Verisign itself, so it’s not that easy to outspend.
I can see many confused users typing .BOMB when someone tells them to visit [DOMAIN].BOM. ‘Bom’ may be Portuguese for ‘good’, but it’s not like a lot of people know that, given the low popularity of Portuguese as a foreign language choice in High School.
As far as .CAM, I can see that it has the potential of being of interest for webcam and perhaps photography sites, but yes, it will simply amount to being another defensive registration for larger .COM sites who are looking to protect their brand. And isn’t yet another defensive domain extension exactly what the Internet (and website owners) needs?
So DaisyCutter.BOM, Nuke.BOM and Atom.BOM should be premium names ? 😉
BTW, BOM is the Dutch word for BOMB, so in Holland won’t be any confusion, it will be plain simply a bomb.
Portuguese is the choice of a 100% of brazilians, the target market for this product, but the many times that Michael confused BOM with BON (French word for GOOD), now corrected, suggests the French could use it.
What now intrigues me is whether VRSN filled objections on .MOM as well, or not. That would be very interesting, someone objecting to “Good” and “Mother”.
The last comment from Ruben highlights perfectly what is at the crux of this whole problem with gTLDs.
They make perfect sense in a community charitable application. They also make sense in a trademark, closed group / security application.
The problem is when certain people try to combine those two applications!
Like Google trying claim .blog and amazon trying to claim .book or .library. In my mind even attempting to do something like that is shameful.
But then again, who ever said these large corporates are there to serve the people? Well, if they want to start claiming public property, they will have to relook at their public services…
Will Amazon put a free computer and internet access in every single place in the world where people want a library?
This is all over and above the fact that there is already a glut of domain names already. Anybody trying to argue a commercial case for a non specific gTLD is fooling themselves and their clients…
I agree that .cam would bring a significant number of defensive and domainer registrations–as will many of the new TLDs. However, I also think that .cam could achieve great success through legitimate registration of and use by actual cam operators. Over half of the live sites on .xxx are cam sites. Clearly, a vibrant market exists. Clearly, .cam would provide competition for the .xxx/.sex/.porn monopoly. Moreover, it would provide a more discreet and less vulgar branding and marketing opportunity, much like .love. (This week, Fox Business reported that, worldwide in 2012, 67% of all porn was purchased by women, and a woman is much more likely to click on hunk.love or stud.cam than she is to click on dick.xxx or lickme.porn.)
rubensk
So there is a set procedure for handling the string contention and there are fixed costs correct?
SO although it certainly get into the six figures, its not like a lawsuit where the parties can be paper it to death for years and drive the costs up into the seven figures
Most likely cost for string similarity will still be five figures, even adding lawyer hours and specialist compensation. The same guess applies to Legal Rights Objection. Community Objection is the one with flashing six figures written all over it.
Public Interest Objection I haven’t looked deeply into.
There is also another game theory consideration to objections: participants in a contention set are less likely to fight the objection, specially if they don’t succeed in grouping the objections to share the costs. So .CAM, .MOM and .BET may see people dropping, same as one .MED app did after the IO went after them.
On the other hand, .BOM and .ECOM are single applicant uncontested strings. Don’t know about .ECOM, but VGRS might regret the decision to go after .BOM.
Hello MHB,
Who is kidding Who?
There is no difference between Defensive registrations and EXTORTION on a massive scale.
Whoever participates in this Folly will have massive write offs and be dealing with foundations anchored in quick sand. P.R. expenses to heal Backlash, not to mention severe damage to their Brand.
Makes sense for Attorneys, Brand Killers, Registrars, SEO Manipulators, Search Engines, Ad campaigners and Cloud Storage companies to store useless unproductive data.
Big losers, Consumers , Competition, GDP , Those who choose to tarnish their Brand on a Global scale, ICANN Credibility, Seamless Global Trade.
Full Speed ahead ICANN, reports of Iceberg spottings, dont worry your unsinkable !
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
There is no doubt that .com will be the big loser, when the new TLDs are launched, so Verisign will obviously do everything to protect their brand. IMO .cam is significantly different than .com (perhaps not if a Texan pronounces it!), however we are talking about the booming cam business sector, and a domain to be used for this specific category. For sure they will continue to make life tough for anyone, but the new TLD launch is an avalanche that is unstoppable
Yes Christopher, it IS an avalanche… An unstoppable avalanche of HYPE, B..S.., Legal Fees, marketing etc.
Apart from Trademarks and Charities it really is just a self fulfilling prophecy designed to line pockets, not serve users!
Unfortunately Domainers have been to busy gloating over their “precious” names, while the wolf crept in….
R.E. = ” Unfortunately Domainers have been to busy gloating over their “precious” names, while the wolf crept in….
Wolves have no chance when encroaching on a Tigers Lair. Wolves will soon be turned into Pussies, once they figure out the logistics of what will be required to Brand themselves over the .COM Brand. Not to worry !
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)