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New ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom has responded to the concerns regarding additional gTLDs raised by two of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s top Republicans, Lamar Smith and Howard Coble, saying that “the new gTLD policy development is the very type of process that the United States government envisioned, supported and encouraged through three presidential administrations.”

In the detailed letter, Beckstrom addressed the three key questions raised by the congressmen:

Q1: How will the recommendations put forth by the Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) serve to reduce or eliminate the need for defensive registrations. Will any of the recommendations prevent price gouging by registries or registrars?

“ICANN’s new gTLD policy includes a provision requiring that new gTLDs ‘must not infringe the existing legal rights of others that are recognized or enforceable under generally accepted and internationally recognized principles of law.’ Accordingly, ICANN will, to the extent possible, protect trademark holders from abusive registrations and from the need for defensive registrations in new gTLDs, but no final decision has been made yet on the exact mechanisms that will be employed.

The New gTLD Program is being designed to with a goal of reducing or eliminating the need for businesses to register domains defensively. One of the key features of protection measures being discussed is a ‘rapid suspension’ system for freezing and suspending clearly infringing registrations in a timely and economical basis, consistent with procedures to ensure fairness… A reduction in the perceived need to register names defensively will also have the effect of reducing the perceived power of new gTLD registries to charge organizations artificially inflated prices for registrations in order to avoid becoming the target of opportunistic cybersquatters.”

Q2: Does ICANN intend to carry out a comprehensive, empirical economic study to examine the impact on competition that additional gTLDs may have? Assuming the rollout goes forward, what steps will ICANN take to monitor the impact on competition in the future?

“ICANN has commissioned three separate economic reports during the implementation phase of the New gTLD Program… They have all recognized that the fundamental benefits of competition that apply in almost all other markets will also benefit Internet users. Those benefits include enhanced service offerings, competition, innovation and choice in the domain name market, while other costs to registrants and overall economic modeling need further analysis…

…In the end, calling for a delay in the entry of new gTLDs only serves to perpetuate existing market conditions: concentration within some existing registries, with most short generic strings unavailable, and those that trade on the value of the current marketplace, holding portfolios based upon the value of current .COM names.

…ICANN will retain economists to review and summarize work to date regarding the costs and benefits of new gTLDs, putting that work into the context of the questions some have said remain open, and then evaluate whether additional study is required.”

Q3: Do you recognize a need for and support the establishment of a permanent instrument that memorializes the relationship between ICANN and the U.S. Government? What assurances do citizens of the United States have that ICANN will effectively meet the goals set out in the JPA if it or a successor agreement is not formally extended?

“It is important to note that the conclusion of the JPA is not a termination of ICANN’s relationship with the United States Government nor is ICANN an advocate of that possibility…

…ICANN seeks to have a long term, formal relationship with the United States Government and also seeks to build long-term relationships with other countries and contractual partners as well.

What do you think of Rod Beckstrom’s response? Are you in favor of the new gTLDs? Do you agree with the way ICANN has handled the process thus far?

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions

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Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com will be the keynote speaker at the fourth annual DOMAINfest Global event, scheduled for January 26-28, 2010 in Santa Monica, California.

Hsieh is one of the most respected and successful business innovators in the online world, founding his shoe company in 2000 with new approaches to marketing, human resource management, and customer service. Within the decade, Zappos grew to a $1 Billion-per-year online retailer and was recently sold to Amazon.com for more than $850 million.

“We’re delighted to have Tony Hsieh join us as a keynote speaker at our 2010 event,” said Oversee CEO and President Jeff Kupietzky. “His fresh thinking, insights related to online consumer behaviors and needs, and intelligent risk-taking have set new standards for how to succeed in e-commerce. DOMAINfest has always been a breeding ground for new ideas on how to get the most out of a domain name investment, so Tony’s fireside chat will provide our guests with plenty of innovative ideas and inspiration.”

Early-bird discounted registration rates for DOMAINfest end on September 30. Visit www.domainfest.com for more information.

[via DFG]

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A group of Iowa investors have big plans for AreaRugs.com, so big that they were willing to shell out $405,000 for the premium domain name.

“Our goal is to be the number one shopping destination online for area rugs,” said Randy Ward, CEO and President of AreaRugs.com. “We feel we have assembled a great team to accomplish that.”

The newly purchased website has been set up as an informational hub for consumers to learn more about area rugs and the industry. However, the team is planning to have a custom-built e-commerce store launched in the future - offering some of the best prices for a wide selection of area rugs to suit any buyer’s needs.

“It is very rare to have the opportunity to buy a premium ‘.com’ domain name in a proven online consumer category,” explained Lee Weber, Head of Marketing for AreaRugs.com. “In economic times like this you have to think outside the box for ways to get the most out of money and our investors feel that we should have no problem getting a decent, if not exceptional, return out of this investment.”

Lee also told DNN: “I have a background in SEO and ecommerce and have partnered with the largest floor covering dealer in my state for this venture.  We had researched the keyword ‘Area Rugs’ and we feel it has very strong estimated traffic number and earning potential.  We also feel that there is no better springboard for an ecommerce store then to have the the .com exact match domain name.

We approached him [the previous owner] with an offer, and he was currently not aggressively promoting the site, and in this slow economic time he felt the offer was too good to pass up.”

The sale price has been verified by the previous owner, Designer Resources of Dallas, Texas.

[via PR Web]

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

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WE BUY DOMAINS. We are interested in acquiring your premium domains - find out more.

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DotGreen to take on DotEco.

When I wrote my tongue-in-cheek guide on how to my .Eco a success, I joked:

Make sure the other side doesn’t decide to just get .green instead. You need to get their heads stuck on .eco. If they opt for .green, you could have long term competition. And that’s not what this is about; you need to get a monopoly TLD.

I should have done some fact checking, because, buried beneath all of the hoopla around .eco, a group has announced .green.

And, according to a press release about the group choosing Neustar as its registry provider, it was their idea first:

Conceived in 2007, .green was the first environmental TLD proposed to international environmental groups, and the DotGreen Registry Corporation remains the only announced non-profit public benefit corporation to seek such an environmental domain. DotGreen accepts philanthropic donations, has no owners or shareholders, and will give 100% of its profits to hundreds of green projects and green organizations aimed at sustainability in every region of the world.

So this begs the question, what would companies do if there’s both .eco and .green? Which one will win? Will GE choose both a .eco and .green, or will it forward one to the other? Or will it just go with GE.com/green? It might create an entirely new category of defensive registrations.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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Keynote speaker announced for DOMAINfest Global.

Tony Hsieh, CEO and Co-Founder of Zappos.com, will be the keynote speaker for DOMAINfest Global 2010. The event will take place January 26-28, 2010 in Santa Monica, California.

This is a good choice for the show, given Hsieh’s background in internet marketing and domain names. Hsieh founded the popular banner exchange network LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million. He also understands the value of a category killer domain name, as Zappos.com paid $4.9 million for Clothes.com. Zappos entered into an agreement to be acquired by Amazon.com for $850 million earlier this year.

If you plan to attend the event, early bird registration rates are available through the end of September for $895. Prices increase $200 on October 1.

Last year, more than 600 people from 26 countries attended the event, making it the largest domain name conference of the year.

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

Review and rate domain name parking companies at Parking Judge.

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1. DomainSponsor Gears up for DOMAINfest Global 2009
2. One More Reason to Attend DOMAINfest Global 2008
3. Zappos Paid $4.9 Millon for Clothes.com Domain Name

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ICANN responds to Congress.

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom has responded to Lamar Smith and Howard Coble’s letter and questions. A copy of Beckstrom’s response is available here.

Here are some highlights:

Implementation Recommendation Team proposals: “The Board has not yet formally considered the proposals from the IRT…

“After this extensive consultation, ICANN is recommending the implementation of versions of the IRT’s recommendations, such as a post-delegation dispute resolution procedure and a “thick Whois” requirement…

“…ICANN will, to the extent possible, protect trademark holders from abusive registrations and from the need for defensive registration in new gTLDs, but no final decision has been made yet on the exact mechanisms that will be employed.”

Economic studies: “In the end, calling for a delay in the entry of new gTLDs only serves to perpetuate existing market conditions: concentration within some existing registries, with most short generic strings unavailable, and those that trade on the value of the current marketplace, holding portfolios based upon the value of current .COM names…

“Even with what appears to be compelling benefits of competition, ICANN’s commitment to open and transparent processes requires further action on ICANN’s part to address the questions that have been raised surrounding the sufficiency of the economic studies commissioned to date. Accordingly, ICANN will retain economists to review and summarize work to date regarding the costs and benefits of new gTLDs, putting that work into the context of the questions some have said remain open, and then evaluate whether additional study is required.”

Expiration of JPA: “I am in discussions with the NTIA to establish a long-standing relationship to accommodate principles including the beliefs that ICANN should remain a nonprofit corporation based in the United States, and should retain and ongoing focus on accountability and transparency.

“…Accordingly, ICANN seeks to have a long term, formal relationship with the United States Government and also seeks to build long-term relationships with other countries and contractual partners as well.”

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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Related posts:

1. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom Talks about Domainers
2. Update: Lamar Smith and Howard Coble Letter to ICANN
3. Congress: Create Permanent Tie to ICANN

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A preview with links to testimony for Wednesday’s hearing.

Wednesday morning, the House Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing on the expansion of top level domain names. Four witnesses will testify: Doug Brent, Chief Operating Officer of ICANN, Richard Heath
President of International Trademark Association, Paul Stahura, Chief Executive Officer/President
eNOM, Inc., and Steve DelBianco, Executive Director of NetChoice.

Here’s a preview of their testimony:

Doug Brent (ICANN): …any resultant delay of the launch of the New gTLD Program will inhibit competition in the use of generic, non‐trademarked terms, and runs counter to the generally accepted view that market entry benefits consumers by expanding output and lowering price. The potential innovations and uses for the new gTLD namespace will be stifled if limitations to entry are imposed.

…Similarly, delaying the introduction of new gTLDs for unsubstantiated fears of price gouging by way of forcing defensive registrations – based upon the omission of price caps in registry contracts – is not a sufficient reason to delay the benefits of introducing competition into the DNS. GTLDs without price caps exist today, yet the registry operators of those gTLDs have not been the subjects of complaints of opportunistic behavior.

While the New gTLD Program already included several protections for intellectual property concerns, and even more protections are under consideration right now, those requesting additional economic studies to take into account the costs to trademark holders fail to provide any specific evidence to support why entry into an entire market should be delayed.

Heath (INTA): The correct time for the introduction of new gTLDs is when it can be clearly demonstrated that the introduction will not cause instability to the domain name system, and will produce improvements in consumer welfare that outweight the cost and harm that will affect Internet users and other stakeholders, including owners of intellectual property. INTA believes ICANN’s new gTLD program has not yet made this showing.

Stahura (eNOM): …despite the fact that as the introduction of competition through new gTLDs is part of ICANN’s charter and is called for in the Joint Project Agreement between ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce, true competition in top level domains has not occurred. Yes, there are some more TLDs then there were 10 years ago, but the doors have essentially remained closed for entrepreneurs like me who have ideas for generic top level domains and are willing to risk significant capital and time in starting new businesses that can not only create jobs, but benefit consumers in many ways…

…For generic names, a wireless company cannot get clear.com except by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars on the “after market” (the non-Registry market) but they may be able to get clear.phones, clear.wire or clear.web for $50 or less when new gTLDs launch. That is a 10,000 fold price reduction, and for a better, more meaningful, name.

DelBianco (NetChoice): While we are grateful for your attention to this issue, we regret that Congress has been drawn into this contentious debate. If ICANN were properly accountable to users and other stakeholders, we would have been able to address our concerns and resolve our differences. As it happened, however, we need Congress and the Commerce Department to focus ICANN on its core mission and hold it accountable to stakeholders.

…ICANN’s planned expansion of top-level domains would make it even less efficient to guess at domains. As the goliath in search, Google will be the big winner form an expansion of TLDs, along with the companies earning fees for defensive registrations. Likely losers in the planned TLD expansion would be website owners who would buy defensive registrations to reduce the risks and costs to fight cybersquatting and attempts to defraud their customers. These concerns have not yet been adequately addressed by ICANN…

In advance of the hearing, Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse released a call for a full scale audit of ICANN, citing ten major problems.

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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Related posts:

1. Microsoft, Time Warner, Others Weigh In On New TLDs
2. Domain Names a Topic on Capitol Hill Thursday
3. Domain names are today’s topic on Capitol Hill

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