Lead organization knew about new TLDs but did nothing about it.
Last week a large group formed to pressure the U.S. government for help in its opposition to new top level domain names. Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight (CRIDO) includes 87 associations and businesses, including the recently outspoken Association of National Advertisers (ANA).
Is the group too late to the table?
Michael Berkens says they are because there were plenty of opportunities to comment, yet ANA only commented twice.
Although I agree with Berkens that CRIDO is coming in really late to this picture, it’s not ANA’s only two comments that bother me. It’s that they’d have more credibility if they didn’t make any comments at all.
We live in an insular world that revolves around domain names. It’s entirely fair for companies to have not heard about new top level domain names until after they were approved.
Think about all of the public comment periods you know absolutely nothing about for things that affect your everyday life. If your life doesn’t revolve around domain names then it’s fair to be upset to learn about these plans after they are approved.
ANA’s problem is that it clearly was aware of the new TLD program and the many comment periods yet failed to act forcibly. It mostly slept on it until it was “too late”.
Anyone who has read this blog over the years knows that I’m hardly a new TLD promoter. But I’m going to agree with those that say ANA is acting too late. It had plenty of chances to comment further during the many years of deliberations over new TLDs. It failed to act.
Nevertheless, I still predict a lawsuit will be flung at ICANN before everything is said and done.
Mike says
It’s too bad these new gTLDs were not stopped earlier as it will hurt a lot of businesses in many ways.
For most domainers however, we will either profit from this or be unscathed from this. It’s a non-issue really for professional domain investors.
Steve M says
Tough to stop the galloping horse once it’s mere feet from the open gate …
Tom G says
At this point they probably wish they had not ever commented, for the reasons you stated.
gpmgroup says
Many of the largest companies and organizations in the world have contributed to the various ICANN comment periods and the majority of those comments were strongly against new gTLDs.
It can be very hard in any organization to get continued funding (including just getting time allocated during company hours) over a period of years, especially when earlier comments which expose real problems and genuine concerns are just ignored, sidelined or dismissed.
Commenting substantively takes many hours of work and was not helped by the overlap of comment periods where a new version is out before the old comments have been dealt with. Very few are able to devote the time and resources to comment over and over like GeorgeK.
I think there has to be a reasonable expectation that if a proposal is as divisive, so flawed from both design and economic perspectives and also has the potential to negatively impact so many innocent third parties as new gTLDs does, at some point a responsible organization will have sufficient checks and balances to ensure that the proposal is either substantively amended or never gets off the drawing board.
NewTLDs.com says
It does appear a bit too late…