NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] NPR: Critics See 'Disaster' In Expansion Of Domain Names
Critics See 'Disaster' In Expansion Of Domain Names
http://j.mp/xJMPop (NPR)
But Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission,
disagrees. "My sense is that a lot of this demand is just absolutely
artificial and largely imagined by the ICANN board," Leibowitz says.
"We're an agency that's required to protect consumers, and from our
perspective, this is a potential disaster and we have an obligation ...
to speak out."
...
Douglas Wood, general counsel of the Association of National
Advertisers, says if the launch of the .xxx domain last year is any
guide, companies will be forced to spend more money buying sites
defensively, just so no one else uses them. "All that money is just
wasted money because it's money thrown away to property rights that
will never be used, never add to competition, never add to innovation,
never do any of the things that ICANN is touting will be the great
benefits of all these new top-level domains," Wood says. He says
companies will have little recourse but to sue. But ICANN won't be
able to undo the damage, he says: "How are they going to compensate
all the brands and the consumers who have been harmed because they
went pell-mell into a new system that ... didn't, in fact, work?"
- - -
It is incredibly sad that ICANN CEO Beckstrom has become, in effect,
the front man for what the insidious domaining industry continues to
call the "gold rush." In those two words are pretty much everything
you need to know about the duplicity of ICANN in this matter. And
Beckstrom continues to play the snake oil salesman actively trying to
stampede companies into spending vast sums to enrich the elite of the
domain-industrial complex, funds that could be far better used
elsewhere in our current economic conditions. Beckstrom and ICANN
have been completely co-opted. They should be ashamed of themselves.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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