ANA Slams GAC Proposal on Geographic gTLDs
The Association of National Advertisers rebuked a draft proposal by ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) on geographic generic top-level domains, in comments filed Tuesday. “The Proposal, however well-meaning ... would create an unsafe new domain name environment for advertisers, consumers,…
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and brand owners,” it said. “Perhaps the most serious issue with the Proposal is it is trying to create new international law on the subject of geo names, without proper authority,” ANA said. “ICANN is not a global, supranational legislature operated by the GAC, nor was it intended to be.” The proposal says such gTLDs should “respect national sensitivities regarding terms with national, cultural, geographic and religious significance.” The Technology Policy Institute also criticized the proposal last month (see 1411120018). The GAC extended the proposal’s comment period to Dec. 31, according to its website. "We are happy that the ANA participated in the multistakeholder process," an ICANN spokesman said.