The Association of National Advertisers threaten to sue ICANN over new gTLDs

[gpmgroup]

Acting on behalf of its members – the more than 400 companies, representing in excess of 10,000 brands that collectively spend over $250 billion in marketing, communications and advertising each year – the ANA argues that implementation of the ICANN program is economically unsupportable and is likely to cause irreparable harm and damage to its membership and the Internet business community in general.

Letter : http://www.ana.net/getfile/16597 (.pdf)

Press release : http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...-level-internet-domain-program-126758823.html

 

[Pryda]

totally behind this! the nTLDs are absolutely unnecessary and some should seriously point that!

 

[Blake]

It's interesting that ANA has waited this long to respond on this matter. It seems as though it may be too late if Icann pulls the trigger and lets the levy break open. I agree with ANA that this will cause brand dilution and also consumer confusion. As it stands now consumers are just not getting use to the other various extensions we have in place...now compound that by 1,000 new ones per year :S

Nightmare!

Lets hope Icann comes to their senses :P

 

[enlytend]

Good for them! The new gtlds are a money grab that primarily benefits ICANN and has little value for anyone else.

 

[gpmgroup]

Domain Incite has interviewed ANA's Bob Liodice who called for the new gTLD program to be suspended

Speaking to DomainIncite, ANA’s Bob Liodice said that American industry is “horrified” by the program, which he believes will cost his members a “quite humongous sum of money”.

http://domainincite.com/ana-chief-calls-for-new-gtlds-to-be-suspended/

 

[gpmgroup]

IAB follows ANA

NEW YORK, NY (August 15, 2011) — The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today called on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to withdraw its controversial new domain-naming plan, saying that the program to assign hundreds of thousands of new domain names would cause incalculable financial damage to brand owners, including the hundreds of media brands in its membership. These “top-level domain” addresses, which could include domain endings that focus on specific trademarked brand names such as .coke, .jetblue, .cnn, .facebook or .verizon, would come at an extremely high cost to publishers and advertisers, and would also offer “cyber squatters” an opportunity to harm a brand’s integrity and/or profit greatly from their bad-faith domain registrations.

http://www.iab.net/about_the_iab/re...IAB-Opposes-New-Web-Domain-Program-From-ICANN

 

[entj]

I wonder how Google would handle these new extensions.

I've already been to sites with .travel domain extension.

 

[gpmgroup]

DMA follows IAB and ANA

Proposals to expand the number of domain names available for internet addresses will burden brands with huge financial costs without providing any search or marketing benefit, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has claimed.

http://www.dma.org.uk/news/new-inte...cost-brands-without-adding-marketing-benefit’

 

[gpmgroup]

World Federation of Advertisers follows with a letter to ICANN

http://info.wfa.be/WFA_letter_to_ICANN_final_draft.pdf

WFA members spend 90% of the world's advertising some $700 billion annually

Some of their members' brands and logos
http://www.wfanet.org/en/about-wfa/member-companies