Recent Posts
- The Swiss can register .swiss domains from next week
- .ai up to 425,000 domains
- A million “free” .music domains up for grabs
- D3 to get $5 million in crypto to apply for .ape gTLD
- Alibaba hit with ICANN breach notice
- New Vegas conference “Davos for Web3 interoperability”
- ICANN content policing power grab may be dead
- Cable company unplugs its dot-brand after acquisition
- Germany crosses 10,000 dot-brand domains milestone
- Founders out as Com Laude gets equity injection
- PIR’s Diaz to leave domain industry
- Some registrars have already quit ICANN’s Whois experiment
- ICANN opens $217 million Grant Program
- Internet could get one-letter gTLDs (but there’s a catch)
- .ai registry fights deadbeats with tweaked auction rules
- Amazon and Google among .internal TLD ban backers
- .ai registry advises buyers not to use GoDaddy
- .post liberalizes with new sunrise period
- Team Internet spends $41 million on content farm
- Epik backtracks on Kiwi Farms claim after legal threat
- .austin names launch on blockchain
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- GoDaddy’s next .xxx contract may not be a done deal
- GlobalBlock blocking 2.5 million domains
- Microsoft moving its cloud apps from .com to .microsoft
- ICANN 79: anonymous trolls and undercover lawyers
- ICANN scores win in single-letter .com lawsuit
- Cosmetics brand terminates its gTLD
- Up to 70 jobs on the line at Nominet as .uk regs dwindle
- Governments back down on new gTLD next round delay
- Private auctions could be banned in new gTLD next round
- ICANN meeting venue “insensitive and hurtful”
- GoDaddy to start selling graphic.design domains
- GAC spinning up new gTLD curveball at ICANN 79?
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- GoDaddy wants to cut the bullshit from .xxx
- Dueling domain blocking services to launch at ICANN 79
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- Olive retires from ICANN
- Whois policy published without life-saving disclosure rule
- UK gov takes its lead from ICANN on DNS abuse
- Tucows reports 2023 results
- Twitter “completely unresponsive” on clickable domains
- ICANN spends $5 million more than planned in first fiscal half
- .art takes a million domains off its premium list
- KeyTrap ‘the most devastating vulnerability ever found in DNSSEC’
- Freenom settles $500 million Meta lawsuit and will exit domain business
- New gTLD lottery to return in 2026
- First GlobalBlock prices revealed — they ain’t cheap
- Domain universe grows on new gTLDs despite .com shrinkage
- D3 signs up crypto gTLD client number five
- GoDaddy reports strong domains growth
- How to qualify for a $40,000 gTLD
- Registry service provider evaluation handbook published
- WebUnited inks deal to “mirror” country’s TLD in the blockchain
- GoDaddy project unveils brand-blocking calculator
- Report: Monster “misappropriated” millions from Epik
- .com is shrinking but Verisign raises prices again anyway
- D3 announces fourth crypto new gTLD client
- Donald Trump loses second UDRP case
- UK cybersquatting complaints hit record low
- No excuses! PIR to pay for ALL registries to tackle child abuse
- ICANN insists it is working on linkification
- Namecheap sues ICANN over .org price caps
- GoDaddy offers free Ethereum blockchain integration
- Epik reveals who is running the company
- Epik gets acquired again! The plot thickens…
- Airline gTLD crashes and burns
- First chunks of new gTLD Applicant Guidebook drop
- Epik to reveal its owners soon
- Another crypto firm to apply for a new gTLD
- Monster and Royce are NOT involved in Epik?!
- Nominet to overhaul .uk registry, turn off some services
- Russia blames DNSSEC, not Ukraine, for internet downtime
- Team Internet says revenue beat estimates
- Sold for over $20k, insure.ai and dog.ai back in .ai’s expired names auction
- .ai helps UDRP cases rise in 2023, WIPO says
- Freenom’s domains land at Gandi after termination
- .ru domains fly off the shelf as Western sanctions bite
- ICANN picks its first ever Supreme Court
- Lebanon’s ccTLD going back to Lebanon after ICANN takeover
- ICANN picks the domain it will never, ever release
- ICANN approves domain takedown rules
- Has Epik gone “woke”?
- First bits of new gTLD Applicant Guidebook expected next week
- ICANN bans closed generics for the foreseeable
- You can’t use money to buy .box domains
- After 14 years, ICANN practices what it preaches on IDNs
- Weak demand for private Whois data, ICANN data shows
- .ing doing way better than .meme
- DNS Women barred from ICANN funding?
- Dev releases free open-source TLD registry platform
- INCO flips a gTLD to Identity Digital
- Anguilla fears the .ai junk drop
- Five more gTLDs get launch dates
- $10 million of ICANN cash up for grabs
- Almost 50,000 .ai domains sold in a quarter
- ICANN threatens to regulate your speech [RANT]
- Life insurance company kills dot-brand
- ICANN finds new home for Lebanon’s TLD after founder’s death
- ICANN begs people to use its new Whois service
- Shiba Inu outs itself as crypto new gTLD applicant
- Over 50,000 .ai domains sold in three months
- Amazon planning new push into registrar market?
- Registries and registrars vote ‘Yes’ to new DNS abuse rules
- ICANN predicts flattish 2025 for domain industry
- Fast-growing Gname buys another 150 registrars
- GoDaddy service to let you block domains in over 650 TLDs
- Did I find a murder weapon in a zone file?
- ICANN drops the “man” from Ombudsman
- Have your say on police domain takedown powers
- Most registrars are shunning ICANN’s new Whois system
- Nominet to take over .gov.uk
- ICANN picks Istanbul for 2024 meeting
- ICANN’s private Whois data request service goes live
- .au regs slide on 2LD anniversary
- ICANN accused of power grab over $271 million auction fund
- A registrar is getting blamed for an Israeli war propaganda site
- Two more dot-brands bite the dust
- Google sells five-figure AI domain and six-figure .ing hack
- .blackfriday is still a bit rubbish
- Internet Naming Co acquires five more gTLDs
- Domain universe grows despite .com drag
- Did somebody spend a million bucks on a Google domain hack?
Companies that both support and oppose new gTLDs
NetChoice, which has spent the last few years publicly expressing a skeptical view of ICANN’s new top-level domains program, has today come out explicitly in its support.
“While not perfect, ICANN’s plan to expand the domain space is a critical step forward for the Internet,” NetChoice executive director Steve DelBianco said in a press release.
“Managed properly, the new gTLD program should increase competition, expand user choice, and make the Internet far more useful to hundreds of millions of users worldwide who read and write in alphabets other than Latin,” he said.
This puts a number of companies in the interesting situation of simultaneously opposing and supporting the new gTLDs program, at least if you track which associations they belong to.
Take eBay, for example.
eBay is a member of NetChoice, but it’s also a member of the anti-expansion Association of National Advertisers, according to the organizations’ respective web sites.
It’s also a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which opposes new gTLDs and is a founder member of the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, which was founded by the ANA and also opposes new gTLDs.
Yahoo, Expedia and Facebook are all members of the IAB, which opposes the expansion, and NetChoice, which doesn’t.
The Screen Actors Guild, which has openly opposed new gTLDs, is also inexplicably listed as a member of the Electronic Retailing Association, which in turn is a member of NetChoice.
News Corp is a member of NetChoice, which supports new gTLDs, while many of its Fox-branded subsidiaries are members of the IAB, which is a member of CRIDO, which opposes new gTLDs.
Intel is a member of the ANA, which opposes the program. It’s also a member of the Association of Competitive Technology, which is in turn a member of NetChoice, which supports it.
Very confusing, isn’t it?
Almost makes you think that, regardless of which side you’re on, hiding behind a coalition just makes your point of view seem less valid.
Perhaps NetChoice hasn’t checked with its members?
Could be.
Could also be that the associations on the other side of the argument didn’t check with theirs.
NetChoice has a small number of members compared to ANA.
I happen to know that at least one of the companies you mention is going after gTLDs with gusto — brands and generics. Funny old world, isn’t it?
It seems a safe bet that many companies who belong to trade associations have little idea what those associations are doing or saying.
Its a bit like .xxx defensive registrations. Doesn’t mean your company wants them, but if you don’t buy them it has the potential to be much more problematic.
ICANN has exasperated the problem through the conscious choices it made in its proposed program for new gTLDs.
So the reason there’s an apparent bi-polarism is that innovation is hard. We don’t know what innovation will flow from their introduction but we do know there will be innovation and we can’t hold it back. And that’s what has driven the growth and acceptance of the Internet. The apparent bi-polarism in support is caused by that expectant doubt. To quote Voltaire, “doubt may be an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd one”.
Well done to Steve DelBianco for seeing this and saying it!
It is probably more a demonstration of politics as an entrepreneurial pursuit. With a good mailing list and a knack for writing scary campfire stories in the form of fundraising letters, you can make a good living. Making sense or even having a respect for testable, verifiable facts is not a requirement.