The Coalition
Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) has released a report claiming
that the introduction of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) as
proposed by ICANN
will cost brand owners worldwide over $746 million.
However the study is part of the propaganda CADNA regularly releases
based on the premise, as they claim, that the cost to individual brand
owners will be "about $500,000 each if one conservatively estimates that
the average brand owner will defensively register 3 domain names per
gTLD, that the average price of domain name registrations in sunrise
periods of new gTLD launches will be $500, and that brands will not
necessarily participate in each gTLD launch equally."
However one needs to consider whether brand owners will really bother
with defensively registering their brand names in small gTLDs. Currently
very few brand owners bother with small country code Top Level Domains
(ccTLDs), so why will it be any different small gTLDs? For a large
number of ccTLDs brand owners ignore registering domain names, either
defensively and/or to promote their products in the local community,
until there is a critical mass of domain names registered.
Backing up this view is a survey by Minds + Machines, who
have a vested in this process admittedly as they are proposing to apply
for several gTLDs when ICANN begins taking applications.
In their survey of the domain registration behaviour of Fortune 100
companies, they found that they have not registered many of their
trademarks in recently created gTLDs. In a sample of 1,043 brands, they
found that they were registered in less than 30 per cent of the eight
new open gTLDs created after 2001.
The survey theorised that if historical registration data is a guide,
brands are unlikely to undertake many defensive domain name
registrations in the proposed new gTLDs, and furthermore are unlikely to
be the victims of cybersquatting.
In an earlier study by Minds + Machines, they found that the cost of
enforcement of trademark rights in new gTLDs is likely to be small - on
the order of $0.10 per registered trademark, per year.
Additionally, ICANN is proposing to create a Trademark Clearinghouse and
Uniform Rapid Suspension procedure to protect trademarks in the new
gTLD programme.
So yes, brand owners will often find they have additional costs in the
new gTLDs. But the costs will be miniscule compared to the claims made
by CADNA, but still significant.