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Screen Actors Guild opposes new gTLDs

Kevin Murphy, November 16, 2011, 09:47:26 (UTC), Domain Policy

While it does not appear to be a member of the new Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, the Screen Actors Guild has come out in opposition to new top-level domains.
The membership organization, which represents over 200,000 Hollywood actors, has asked US Secretary of Commerce John Bryson to persuade ICANN to delay the gTLD program until it can “demonstrate convincingly” that it will be in the public interest.
SAG national executive director David White wrote:

The ICANN proposal would unduly burden a diverse range of public and private brand holders, companies with whom our members are associated. This also presents an undue burden on our organization, as a globally recognized brand. Under this rule, many brand-holders would be forced to spend ever-greater amounts of time and resources simply to protect their brands.

Like many other opponents of the program, White also raises the conflicts-of-interest question that emerged following Peter Dengate Thrush’s move from ICANN’s chair to new gTLD applicant Minds + Machines.
SAG was not listed as a member of CRIDO, the huge cross-industry lobby group that formed to oppose new gTLDs last week, although its arguments are identical.

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Comments (2)

  1. Jothan Frakes says:
    November 17, 2011 at 12:18 am

    I think it is frankly quite shameful for such dialog to happen if it occurred without polling the member base about their individual interests.
    If each member stated outright that they didn’t want this to move forward, after being educated on the matter to make an authentic assessment about if new TLDs were right or wrong, that would be far more responsible action.
    As it stands this letter looks like a fairly close “rubber stamp” clone of other template letters that are being distributed by groups that are claiming to represent large memberships in opposition of new TLDs, when in fact many of their members ARE applying.
    I hope that our elected representatives in government will take into consideration that many of these organizations proclaiming to represent the entirety of their ranks have significant dissent in reality.

    Reply
  2. Jothan Frakes says:
    November 17, 2011 at 12:24 am

    I’d like to also state that I have the deepest respect for the Screen Actors Guild otherwise.

    Reply

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