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ICANN having second thoughts about dot-sucks domains

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, President and Chief Executive Rod Beckstrom, left, and Kurt Pritz, Senior Vice President speaks on expanding the number of domain name suffixes during a press conference, London, Wednesday June 13, 2012. Proposals for Internet addresses ending in ".pizza," ''.space" and ".auto" are among the nearly 2,000 submitted as part of the largest expansion in the online address system. Apple Inc., Sony Corp. and American Express Co. are among companies seeking names with their brands. The expansion will allow suffixes that represent hobbies, ethnic groups, corporate brand names and more. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced the proposals for Internet suffixes â the ".com" part of an Internet address â in London on Wednesday. Among the 1,930 proposals for 1,409 different suffixes, the bulk came from North America and Europe. (Tim Hales/AP Photos)
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, President and Chief Executive Rod Beckstrom, left, and Kurt Pritz, Senior Vice President speaks on expanding the number of domain name suffixes during a press conference, London, Wednesday June 13, 2012. Proposals for Internet addresses ending in “.pizza,” ”.space” and “.auto” are among the nearly 2,000 submitted as part of the largest expansion in the online address system. Apple Inc., Sony Corp. and American Express Co. are among companies seeking names with their brands. The expansion will allow suffixes that represent hobbies, ethnic groups, corporate brand names and more. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced the proposals for Internet suffixes â the “.com” part of an Internet address â in London on Wednesday. Among the 1,930 proposals for 1,409 different suffixes, the bulk came from North America and Europe. (Tim Hales/AP Photos)
By | themerc@bayareanewsgroup.com
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After making way for .sucks to become a destination on the Internet, ICANN is looking for a way out of a mess it helped create.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is now asking the Federal Trade Commission and Canada s Office of Consumer Affairs to decide whether the online real estate craziness over .sucks that s now going on is illegal — so it can crack down on it. The Associated Press reports that ICANN sent the regulatory bodies a letter Thursday.

Canadian company Vox Populi bought the generic .sucks top-level domain, and starting last month began charging companies up to $2,499 a year for each .sucks domain. I wrote then that Ralph Nader was featured in a commercial promoting .sucks domains, calling the word sucks a protest word. An advisory panel representing companies such as eBay, Microsoft and Verizon disagree; the AP reports they complained last month that the whole things was predatory.

Amid the domain land grab begun after ICANN approved hundreds of new top-level domains, some companies — and people — have paid up, taking the offensive before they have to get on the defensive against potentially detrimental domains. Pop star Taylor Swift has reportedly snapped up .porn and .adult with her name attached. Domains such as YouTube.sucks, Yahoo.sucks and Bing.sucks have reportedly been bought.

Vox Populi CEO John Berard told the AP his company s business is well within the lines of ICANN rules and the law.

 

Photo: ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, left, and Kurt Pritz, senior vice president, talk about expanding the number of domain name suffixes during a press conference in London in June 2012. (Associated Press archives)

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