By Shannon Stahlin, CEO, Direct Incorporation
The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), just made an announcement that they are opening up an infinite number of domain endings for purchase.
In addition to .com, .org and .net, people will soon have the opportunity to buy .travel, .soda, .whatever…
This new announcement made me think of all the trademark issues this new age of Internet could open up. Take Coke for example. Anyone, including competitors, may just be able to buy www.coke.soda for use, complicating Coke’s ability to detect infringement and protect its trademark, not to mention the potential confusion to soda consumers.
ICANN will take applications for the new domain endings in January of next year, and it assures us that there will be ample time for companies to enforce their trademarks if something like the above happens. Not to mention that the cost of these new domain endings starts at $185,000 with a $25,000 maintenance fee each year.
AdAge.com wrote a terrific article about ICANN’s announcement. You can find it here.
I’d love to know your thoughts on this new announcement from ICANN. Post away and I will try to answer any questions that come up. – Shannon
