Opening up generic top level domains 'will only benefit trademark lawyers'

Opening up generic top level domains (gTLD) is likely to hinder large companies looking to improve their brand, as they will inevitably face huge admin fees and complicated legal battles.

This was the opinion of Peter Matthews, founder and managing director of brand and internet consultancy firm Nucleus, who was addressing a Westminster eForum event on web regulation and domain names today.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) revealed in June that any "entity" will be able to apply for a new gTLD between January and April of 2012.

There are currently 22 gTLDs, including the popular .com and .org, but this will now be opened up to any word in any language.

For example, Apple may apply to own the .Apple gTLD, which would mean its iPad web site could be accessed by typing something along the lines of www.ipad.apple.

Companies will be able to apply for their own personalised gTLD for a fee of $185,000 (£115,000), plus an ongoing annual fee of $25,000 (£15,567).

ICANN has suggested that this will benefit companies, communities and organisations looking to improve branding.

Matthews suggests, however, that "dot brand domains" will simply result in money generation for third parties.

"The Association of National Advertisers in the US has come out strongly against this decision, arguing that ICANN is going to do irreparable damage to the business of many brand owners," explained Matthews.

"This has been supported by the Interactive Advertising Bureau of the US, and the Direct Marketing Association in the UK. You can't just brush these concerns under the carpet," he added.

"For example, is the .polo domain going to go to VW, the mints or Ralph Lauren? This is going to create a huge problem and there are going to be huge trademark disputes."

Matthews argued that the people who are most "enthusiastic" about the dot brand domains are the trademark attorneys who will see "huge amounts of litigation come through".

Matthews also suggested that brand owners, even if they do not want to engage in competing for gTLDs, will have to invest money into researching what to do, simply because their competitors will be.

"If I was advising a brand owner, even if he or she didn't want to go through all the expense and fight legal battles, I would still have to try to find out as much as I could and be prepared to put a bid in, in case everyone else was," he said.

Chief Ovum IT analyst Carter Lusher agreed with Matthews and argued that the current system does not need to be changed.

"The current .com structure works fine, as it is easy to type in IBM.com or Apple.com and go to the appropriate home page. Having a top level domain name like .IBM or .Apple only adds clutter that marketers and brand executives hate," said Lusher.

"However, companies will feel compelled to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to ICANN and legal firms to reserve names to protect their trademarks."