The new gTLD program is an existential threat to ICANN if it continues to ignore the concerns of IP interests, according to the International Trademark Association.
Trademark owners are becoming disillusioned with the ICANN process and “instead have opted to pursue more balanced outcomes through regulators, legislatures, and courts”, INTA said in comments on draft new gTLD program rules yesterday.
INTA warned that there has been “a decline in interest in the work of ICANN as otherwise engaged members have determined that there is very little return on the thousands of hours of time that they have devoted to ICANN’s continuous improvement”. It said:
The ICANN Board, Org and review team members would do well to consider the consequences of continuing to ignore the input of non-contracted parties especially when it comes to addressing ongoing harms within the domain name system. At a time when governments are vying to assume more policy oversight over the DNS, ICANN is well positioned to double down on the multistakeholder model by giving serious consideration and adjusting proposed policies in a balanced manner.
ICANN’s refusal to take on board the IP lobby’s suggestions when it added new DNS abuse requirements to its registry and registrar contracts earlier this year seems to be at the root of the outburst.
INTA said that it is “opposed to new [gTLD application] rounds” until “substantial reforms are made to ICANN’s approach to domain abuse and contract compliance”.
The comments were by far the angriest filed in response to the ICANN public comment period, just closed, that sought input on several draft sections of the new gTLD program’s Applicant Guidebook.
Pre-rant, INTA substantively said that the AGB needs to give brand owners and potential dot-brand applicants more clarity on when subsequent application rounds will launch.
Currently, ICANN expects the Next Round’s first wave to kick off in the second quarter of 2026, but subsequent application windows are subject to a checklist of triggering events that on the face of it is a little confusing.
Threats of government intervention undermining the legitimacy of the ICANN multistakeholder model are of course far from new. I’ve been writing about them for 20 years or more.
But the latest INTA threat may ring a little hollow given that ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee also filed comments on exactly the same issues, so we know exactly what governments think: they’re totally cool with how the AGB is being drafted, and just seem happy to be involved.
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