22 February 2013

Petition to Stop Corporate Takeover of New gTLDs (domain names)

A petition (link below) against the corporate takeover of new gTLDs--

Petition | ICANN: Stop Corporate Takeover of New Internet Names | Change.org: " . . . These attempts to restrict access are an abuse of the system and pose great risk of harm to business, consumers and internet users globally. New generic word top level domain names should be open to the general public to use. Individuals and small businesses should be able to use .music, movie .shop and .whatever to create, innovate, and promote their business or interests online. These takeover attempts have potential to give large companies enormous power in their respective markets. If Amazon alone controls all web addresses ending with .music, .app, .book and others they will wield an enormous competitive advantage in these markets online. The result would be further consolidation of wealth at the top. Corporate takeover here will also stifle creativity and expression online. How could one company alone possibly determine all possible creative applications of website names that end with .video, .store, .song and more? Artists should be able to use .art names to showcase their craft. App developers should be able to get a .app domain name for their new app website. There are millions of new small businesses that could use a .SHOP name for their website. But Amazon wants them all. No single company should be sole arbiter of how these new names can be used for innovation, expression and commerce. New TLDs in languages like Chinese and Japanese are at risk also. Large corporations are asking to close off Chinese domain symbols; .家電(consumer electronics) .手表(watches) .書籍(book) .珠宝(jewelry) .食品(food) .通販(online shopping) and Japanese characters; .クラウド (.cloud), .ストア (.store), .セール (.sale ), .ファッション (.fashion ). People and businesses in Japan and China would not even have access to use website names in their own language! The very group that these new names are supposed to serve will be shut out from them. ICANN has opened a comment period on this subject. Submit your views directly to ICANN here. . . . "


ICANN has new website for new gTLDs: http://newgtlds.icann.org
ICANN New gTLDs:
12 February 2013
New gTLDs Website, Renewed
06 February 2013
Beneficiary Requirement on Letters of Credit
01 February 2013
Webinar: Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Variant: Examining the User Experience Implication of the Active Variant TLDs
29 January 2013
Next Applicant Update Webinar 5 February 2013


gTLD Strategy Congress takes shape with Google, .Boston, and more - Domain Name Wire: "First, L’Oreal has switched speakers to Brigitte King, Senior Vice President. Her keynote is called “The L’Oreal Story: Building Beauty Brands with Digital, Data and Direct Relationships”. Given the title, it’s not clear how much insight she’ll provide about the company’s new top level domain ambitions. Second, Hal Bailey, Director, Domains Business at Google will take part in the futurist panel “Domains in 2015, 2020, 2025: A View of the dot Future”. Google has applied for about 100 top level domain names. Third, The Boston Globe’s Jeff Moriarty, Vice President for Digital Products, will discuss the group’s bid for .Boston. Finally, Mommy blogger Ilana Wiles will discuss what she would do with .mom if she could have afforded to apply for it. This is an interesting session, as it may just show how new TLDs provide a bigger gap between the “haves” and “have nots” on the internet. . . .


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