ICANN criticised by IAB

US

Catherine White-staff reporter

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is urging the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to withdraw its "controversial" plans for new top-level domains.

ICANN's plan would significantly expand Top-Level Domains (TLD) which could see suffixes handed out that includes brand names, such as .coke or .facebook.

As a result, IAB has said that by assigning hundreds of thousands of new domain names, ICANN could cause "incalculable financial damage" to brand owners.

It added that it would come at an "extremely high cost to publishers and advertisers, and would also offer cyber squatters an opportunity to harm a brand's integrity and/or profit greatly from their bad-faith domain registrations".

President of the IAB Randall Rothenberg said, "ICANN's potentially momentous change seems to have been made in a top-down star chamber. There appears to have been no economic impact research, no full and open stakeholder discussions, and little concern for the delicate balance of the internet ecosystem."

IAB is not the only company that has opposed the new domain programme. In early August, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) highlighted "major flaws" in ICANN's proposed new regime.

ANA argues that implementation of the system is economically unsupportable and is likely to cause irreparable harm and damage to its membership and the internet business community in general.

Additionally, ANA claims that the programme contravenes the legal rights of brand owners and jeopardises the safety of consumers.

In a letter to Rod Beckstrom, president of ICANN, president of ANA Bob Liodice said the programme could create marketplace confusion and increase online crime, "The internet can turn into a veritable minefield for criminal activity...Brand confusion, dilution and other abuses also pose risks of cyber predator harms, consumer privacy violations, identity theft and cyber security breaches."

Rod Beckstrom responded, stating that ANA's assertions "are either incorrect or problematic in several respects" and ICANN will "vigorously defend" its programme.

ANA said they were "not surprised" by the response.