Melbourne IT is urging the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to tighten safeguards around the new generic Top Level Domains (TLD).
The company has released a community discussion paper with policy alternatives for ICANN to consider.
Melbourne IT said brands and consumers could be victims of cyber squatters, phishers, and counterfeiters which register well-known trademarks at the second level of the generic ‘.anything’ program, for example ‘.watches.rolex’.
Melbourne IT said the organisations with ‘high at risk marks’ (HARMs) may feel the need to register their trademarks in every new generic TLD to protect their brand.
Theo Hnarakis, chief executive and managing director Melbourne IT, said: “Well-known distinctive names have acted as a reliable signpost for consumers for centuries – they allow consumers to quickly identify the organization they are interacting with and carry implied trust or distrust based on those interactions.”
“Trademark law was established to protect the use of these distinctive names. Domain name misuse abuses that consumer trust and the potential for misuse of well-known distinctive names among new gTLDs at the second level is significant.
“Affording greater protections to well-known names in new gTLDs will allow ICANN to provide greater protection to consumers online as well as helping organizations defend their reputations online.”
ICANN has received more than 1,900 applications for a new ‘.anything’ domain name with more than 1,000 new generic TLDs to go live from next year.
Melbourne IT suggests ICANN should produce a list of HARMs to single out the organisations which need more protection and that it offer ‘sunrise privileges’.
The sunrise concept would see HARMs able to pay a one-off blocking fee to register the name, with no on-going renewal fee.
The discussion paper also proposes stronger registration requirements as well as suspension and recovery rules.
“In a new gTLD world, organizations will still need to be more proactive in monitoring for online infringements, that is not going to disappear; but what we are asking ICANN for is a stronger process to increase consumer protection by shielding high at-risk names that are regularly abused by cybersquatters, phishers and counterfeiters online,” Hnarakis said.
“ICANN’s current guidelines and initiatives to protect trademark holders do not go far enough."
Melbourne IT plans to present the paper to ICANN in Toronto in October.
No comments:
Post a Comment