ICANN, the Internet Authority is up against the wall, andhere are the top five reasons for which it may simply drop its greatestrevolutionary idea of offering a brand new type of a designer domain name tofit the next generation of widely expanded Internet and cyber realities oftomorrow.  This new proposed platform will surely revolutionize themarketing and branding for big and small businesses around the world, offeringhighly affordable tools for global reach than ever before but the strongopposition would like to kill this idea? Would ICANN consider dropping theidea? Here are the five reasons:


One: Fear of rejection and lack of support by the Internet practitioners andthe domain registrar community of the world, who for some strange reason havenot expressed their full and open support, partially due to serious lack ofunderstanding of the global business nomenclature and also for realcomplexities of cyber-branding.


Historically speaking the original concept of the first fivesuffixes, like com or net, most probably drawn up at the back of a napkin, haveproven one thing, that till now .com is the king and all the others suffixesare in a struggle. So, suddenly the unlimited issuance of suffixes of choice isa shocker.


Internet registrars in a suffix driven registrationmentality are quite right as their existing suffixes will seriously shrink.However, based on soon to be released study by ABC Namebank, which points tothe law of usability which dictates that these new domains are not about suffixes,rather these are domain names without suffixes. The future is all about namedriven domain identities over suffix driven domain identities and the lack ofcorporate nomenclature understanding at a global scale is the proof. Imagine acity phone book and yellow pages under a suffix system. 100 phone books anyone?


The study also points to the numbers of new applicationsunder the new platform to be so large all over the world that it will totallyre-energize the entire Internet support services due new sets of domain namemanagement and varied registrations requirements.


Two: Lack of credibility and confusion among the trademark professionals andattorneys worldwide who are aggressively exploring their particular role in theprocess but still keep pointing out serious risks to trademark holders and ofincreased cyber squatting.


The trademark profession justifiably recognizes threecritical issues, firstly, the availability, suitability and registrability ofany proposed name application under the common law, allowing traditionaltrademark process which provides progressive jurisdictional approval over yearsand now its sudden correlation to a new process of global cyber name brandingin one single stroke. Secondly, the court challenges between newly recognizedcyber brands and traditionally filed brands and lastly, the serious limitationson already approved trademarked names filed in regions in their ownclassification which would only fail on this single classification new platformwhere only one single name would be allowed to exist.


The study by ABC Namebank clearly points to a serious 95%dilution factor among major business names around the world and how this cyberbranding race will create havoc among those aggressively filed but poorlycrafted brand names.


Despite, all the weird and mysterious reasons, the factremains that most medium and large size business names all over the world arebadly structured and cannot pass the global test on this new platform and theexposure of this blunt fact should not be one of the prime reason ofopposition, rather it only creates a great opportunity as a fix for real globalimage expansion. Irrespective of all this it will be a real big bang era fortrademark and legal professions as they are poised to play a very big role.


Three: Complete absence of any enthusiastic support from the advertising andmarketing trade, this group is not only oblivious to this tsunami but due tothe technical ramification finds it at odds to even mention it.

 

The marketing professionals, the branding experts and the advertising agencies, encompassing a couple of million people in this trade worldwide have yet to discover, what this revolutionary device can deliver at a global scale at a price less than the production cost of a single TV commercial. The massive shrinkage due to digitization of the global advertising and branding industry already underway will eventually get harmonized with these new cyber platforms. For now, some fast track education is needed to capture and re-energize the entire industry, the sheer volume of the re-branding; re-naming and the re-positioning will also open extraordinary new fronts.


Four: Outright rejection by the domain name protection agencies, as their extra filings of millions of domain names to scare off cyber squatters as a service may be considered redundant.


The ease of entry to a domain name purchase really spread the disease of cyber-squatting but now with a proposed price tag of $200K-500K for each name, plus a rigorous complex process, the midnight trains of mysterious squatters would simply be shunted to other tracks. Furthermore, once a new gTLD domain is allotted to a party, it would be very nave to assume that ICANN would allow several modified versions of the same name to be sold to others. The brand protection agencies will have far too many other new fronts to explore and they may have to out focus form only squatting.


Five: Lack of a powerful message for the global entrepreneurial audience and for not being able to articulate the issues with swift speed, utilizing the latest technologies of mass communication and making this a popular high level global business debate.


The mother of all action is this arena, where brand new ideas will incubate and dynamics of the new platform will shine. With a billion additional users coming on the surface the endless horizon will change and global interaction will create a very rich Internet experience. Media has paid little attention to this subject as this item is still in the IT columns of the lukewarm publications and has yet to make a front page breaking news when for example, Paris Hilton, would throw a tantrum and demand her exclusive global rights to both of the new global domain names dot paris and dot hilton etc. at any price or else. Are we really waiting for the Paris's parade of the paparazzi?


More information on the size and magnitude of these important issues can be found
on &sec=article&uinfo=<%=server.URLEncode(1919)%>" target="_blank">www.icann.org (ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) or on Google by searching "the billion dollar domain babies" or "new gTLD"


Conclusion


The world's business community needs a quick educational pill so that the techno-babble would seriously clash with the sing-song-slogans, creating a clear and a very rich message that will not only add the value and power to this new platform but also bring it to the center stage.


For now, should ICANN drop the idea? no, never,  but if it did, nothing really will change for a while, but sooner or later, somehow a group of new countries would claim the true ownership of the Internet and set up a global body to meet the worldly challenges of tomorrow. While the above mentioned fears may have overtaken, right now, the global business community critically needs an easy global access and quick market expansion to survive and this platform offers some key solutions and for that reason alone and without delay the future must meet today.


Fire-up all the engines, ICANN.


About the Author


Naseem Javed; widely recognized a world-authority on global naming strategies and corporate nomenclature issues. Author of Naming for Power, Naseem introduced The Laws of Corporate Naming in 80s and currently he is lecturing on global cyber branding and the ICANN's new gTLD platforms.