ICANN has yet to provide a “full and careful analysis”...
ICANN has yet to provide a “full and careful analysis” of its reasons for dismissing proposals for a “Do Not Sell” registry of brands that would be off-limits as new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), the Association of National Advertisers told…
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ICANN in a letter made public late Monday. ICANN’s April 10 notice that its newly formed gTLD committee had rejected Do Not Sell-like proposals, saying that commenters were focused on second-level defensive registration and not top-level registration, apparently ignored the concerns raised by ANA and others about top-level as well as second-level problems, Dan Jaffe, ANA executive vice president for government relations, told ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom (http://xrl.us/bm6qhm). Current protections for IP owners are insufficient because of “potential string confusion problems,” meaning that string confusion could only be challenged by filing a gTLD application -- an expensive proposition, Jaffe said. “Unlike other entities which receive, analyze and publish the basis for their decisions grounded in the proceeding record, it does not appear that ICANN assumes any obligation to provide stakeholders with any detailed, meaningful explanation for its actions, which would be in accordance with the proceeding record developed,” he said: “Failure to act quickly in this area will, in effect, create a definitive decision in regard to the defensive registration issues at the top level through inertia and inaction.” Jaffe also wrote NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling, saying that ANA and the Coalition for Responsible Domain Name Oversight, which jointly proposed Do Not Sell, have told ICANN on “numerous occasions” that their only other recourse would be applying to run a registry they have no interest in. Jaffe asked Strickling (http://xrl.us/bm6qhj) to have NTIA “seek further, detailed clarification from ICANN regarding the basis of its rejection of concerns about defensive registrations and either share that information directly with stakeholders, or prompt ICANN to make such disclosure."