Washington, D.C.—The Association of National Advertisers urged the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to improve protection mechanisms for top-level domains in a letter that supports Limited Preventative Registrations.
LPRs would allow trademark holders to prevent registration of their exact trademarks across all Internet domain name registries.
“More than 60 companies, and leading professional and industry groups representing a wide variety of industry sectors (consumer finance, technology, professional sports, food and beverages, and healthcare, to name a few) submitted comments in favor of these proposals and identified the LPR as a critically necessary protection for brand owners,” the ANA said in the letter.
The ANA is urging ICANN to put protection mechanisms in place before the implementation of new generic top-level domains, which go into effect this year after ICANN voted to expand categories for gTLDs in 2011.
“Within a few months, ICANN is poised to begin adding more than 1,000 new gTLDs to the Internet,” said Dan Jaffe, group exec VP of the ANA, in a statement Wednesday.
“Despite the serious concerns raised for over a year by the business community, the law enforcement community and consumer protection agencies, ICANN elevates process over substance and refuses to adequately address rights protections for either consumers or trademark owners,” Jaffe said. It is way past time for ICANN to do the right thing and address these serious flaws with their gTLD program.”
