Melbourne IT Urges ICANN to Consider Stricter Protections to Minimize Consumer and Business Harm in New gTLDs
August 16 2012 - 9:15AM
Business Wire
Melbourne IT today called on ICANN to provide greater consumer
protection to reduce the risk of public confusion or fraud in new
generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) by strengthening safeguards for
the use of well-known names at the second level before more than
1,000 new gTLDs are introduced on to the Internet beginning in
2013.
Melbourne IT supports more than 3,800 well-known organizations
around the world with digital brand management services. The
company has released a Community Discussion Paper, entitled
‘Minimizing HARM‘, which outlines a policy alternative whereby
organizations with ‘High At-Risk Marks’ should be afforded greater
protections at the second level (ie. names to the left of the dot),
which ICANN could adopt to boost consumer protection. Melbourne IT
has invited concerned organizations to help support and develop the
proposal further.
Melbourne IT CEO & Managing Director, Theo Hnarakis, said
organizations were rightly concerned by the heightened potential
for misuse of their names to defraud consumers in the many new
proposed gTLDs with open registration policies similar to .com.
“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,” Mr Hnarakis said.
“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. ICANN’s current guidelines and initiatives
to protect trademark holders do not go far enough,” he said.
“The Community Discussion Paper that Melbourne IT has developed
aims to form the basis for a strong, credible, and balanced policy
document developed by the community to put to the ICANN community
for consideration at ICANN’s Toronto meeting in October. I
encourage all concerned businesses, governments, non-profit
organizations, and consumer -interest groups to join us in
developing this policy into a compelling solution for what is
likely to be a significant problem for consumers online.”
Melbourne IT will hold a working group summit in Washington D.C.
on Tuesday, September 18th to further discuss the proposal and the
issues it raises. Event details, including guest speakers and
timings, will be announced shortly.
To summarize, Minimizing HARM proposes:
A list of ‘High At-Risk’ Trademarks
- The creation of a list of ‘High At-Risk
Marks’, or HARMs, that is based on a robust and credible scoring
system to determine which brands qualify as a HARM and therefore
are afforded greater protections
Sunrise Privileges
- HARMs may be protected through
defensive registration during new gTLD Sunrise phases where the
trademark owner can pay a one-off blocking fee to register the
name, with no on-going renewal fee and the domain name not
resolving (a process successfully used during ICM Registry’s .xxx
Sunrise B process)
Stronger registration requirements
- New gTLD registries must validate
at least two contact details (amongst
Phone number, email address, or postal address) of registrants that
register a name that matches a HARM
- Registrants must warrant that their use
of the mark will not infringe
- Provisions for trademark claims, which
are currently restricted to 60 days, be extended to an ongoing
basis for HARMs
Stronger suspension and recovery rules
- Upon registration of a name that
matches a HARM, the trademark owner is immediately notified
- The domain name can be suspended with
48 hours’ notice by the trademark owner of domain name misuse
- Registrant can pay a bond (equal to URS
fee paid by complainant) to have the name reinstated while a URS
process is underway
- Registrant will lose the bond if the
registrant loses the dispute. The Trademark owner will receive a
refund of their fee from the dispute provider if they are
successful. If the Registrant is successful, the bond is refunded.
This is similar to the equal payment rules for the Legal Rights
Objection process at the top level.
A key distinction in this proposal is to balance the costs for
registrants and owners of High At-Risk Marks in the dispute
resolution process, and ensure appropriate accountability by the
registrant for their actions.
Melbourne IT invites all concerned organizations wishing to
support this proposal and participate in its development to contact
Tony Smith at Melbourne IT via email:
tony.smith@melbourneit.com.au.
About Melbourne IT
Melbourne IT (ASX: MLB) helps organizations of all sizes to
successfully conduct business online. Our complete portfolio of
Internet-based technology services drives business effectiveness
and profitability for more than 350,000 customers around the
world.
The breadth of Melbourne IT’s offering extends from helping
small businesses build an online presence through to managing the
complex technology environments of large enterprises and
governments – including Internet domain name services, web hosting,
online brand protection and promotion, managed IT services and
more.
Melbourne IT’s culture of integrity, innovation, collaboration
and customer centricity has been built by more than 700 employees
spread across 18 offices in 10 countries. For more information,
visit www.melbourneit.info.
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