Thursday, June 23, 2011

ICANN Not Buy Competitor's Name

While the Milwaukee County Circuit Court answered 'yes' to the question, "Can competing law firms buy my name or my firm's name to compete against me online?" ICANN (http://www.icann.org/) is at the exact opposite position, at least as far as TLD's (top level domains) are concerned.

ICANN is an acronym for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is the global body that oversees the Internet address system

ICANN takes the 'no unfair competition' to the limits. When issuing new top level domains, the rules apply for confusing the consumer and confusingly similar domain suffixes are verboten. So, for example, if Martindale Hubbell snagged .lawyers, Thomson Reuters would be blocked permanently from acquiring .lawyer as a suffix.

Like the move to IPV6 that will expand the quantity of Internet addresses available, the move towards 'keyword TLD's' is slow because both have profound worldwide impacts.

For those for whom ICANN is most concerned - the financial industry, global manufacturers such as .coke - the cost of acquiring a TLD is minimal compared to others that seek more generic TLD's. The application fee that Coca-cola can expect to pay for the .coke suffix, or Pepsi for the .pepsi suffix, is $185,000. Those types of suffix-seekers can also expect to pay about another $100,000 in setup fees and annual maintenance fees of $100,000.

For those who will be seeking the generic TLD's, the application process differs. Where Pepsi wouldn't be allowed to acquire the .coke suffix on the basis of unfair competitive marketing practices, a fact that the Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge missed in the Habush keyword case, ICANN will accept all applications for those seeking generic terms. If Lexis' group provides a profound purpose for owning the .law suffix that is equally met in purpose by Thomson-Reuter's application, ICANN will force the competing entities into auction. At that point, the sky is the limit and a suffix such as .law might go for multiples of millions of dollars.

But what does this all mean to the small law firm (Habush is small compared to Baker-McKenzie just as Van Wagner & Wood and Brandau & Waltz are small compared to Habush)?

ICANN policy prohibits competing entities from acquiring the same suffixes or confusingly similar suffixes; that policy is emphasized and brought into the light more now as it will be over the next three years as these new suffixes roll out to remind the Chief Justices that hear appeals such as Habush's forthcoming appeal in the confusing keyword case that unfair competitive practices can be easily defined and proscribed. If the Appellate Court judges (or Supreme Court Justices, as the case may be for Habush) reverse Milwaukee's decision, it will give the small law firm protection.

Additionally, where the suffixes '.com', '.biz', '.pro' are specifically intended for all commercial, business and professional concerns respectively, and '.edu and '.gov' for example are restricted, the intended purpose of suffixes such as .law or .lawyers will be defined by the winning applicant or bidder unless ICANN restricts the new suffix.

Helpful links:
ICANN: http://www.icann.org/
CNN on the Generic Dot Com: http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/20/technology/dot_brand_domain_name_icann/index.htm
Global Radio: http://www.rferl.org/content/icann_has_censorship/24244549.html
Milwaukee Circuit Court: http://county.milwaukee.gov/CourtServices7714/ClerkHomePage.htm

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