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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi all,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> I’m writing to share an article EFF recently published on our blog, about the “closed generics” issue. A version of this is online at
<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/giving-big-corporations-closed-generic-top-level-domain-names-run-private-kingdoms">
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/giving-big-corporations-closed-generic-top-level-domain-names-run-private-kingdoms</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> Best regards,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> Mitch<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New";color:black">-- </span><span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New";color:black">Mitch Stoltz</span><span style="color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New";color:black">Competition Director and Senior Staff Attorney<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New";color:black">Electronic Frontier Foundation</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><a href="https://www.eff.org/donate" title="https://www.eff.org/donate"><span style="font-family:"Courier New";color:#00004D">https://www.eff.org/join</span></a></span><span style="font-family:"Courier New";color:black">
| <a href="https://act.eff.org"><span style="color:#0563C1">https://act.eff.org</span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New";color:black">----------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Courier New";color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>Giving Big Corporations “Closed Generic” Top-Level Domains to Run as Private Kingdoms Is Still a Bad Idea</b></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p2"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="p1"><b>By Mitch Stoltz</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p1"><b>Competition Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p2"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">No business can own the generic word for the product it sells. We would find it preposterous if a single airline claimed exclusive use of the word “air,” or a broadband service tried to stop its rivals from using the word “broadband.”
Until this year, it seemed settled that TLDs would follow the same obvious rule. Alas, ICANN seems intent on taking domains in a more absurd direction by revisiting the thoroughly discredited concept of “closed generics.”</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">Closed generics are top-level domain names using common words, like “.car.” But unlike other gTLDs, a closed generic TLD is one where a single company controls all of the second-level names, acting as registry, registrar, and
sole registrant. This is a terrible idea, for all of the same reasons it has failed twice already. And for one additional reason—defenders of open competition and free expression should not have to fight the same battle a third time.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s2"><b>Closed Generics Rejected and Then Resurrected</b></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">The context of this fight is the new gTLD process. In 2012, during the first round of applications, some companies asked for complete, exclusive control over domains like .baby, .blog, .book, .cars, .food, .mail, .movie, .music,
.news, .shop, and .video, plus similar terms in Chinese characters. Most of the applicants were among the largest players in their industries (like Amazon for .book and Johnson & Johnson for .baby).</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">The outcry was fierce, and ICANN was flooded with public comments. Representatives of domain name
<a href="https://circleid.com/posts/20130224_5_reasons_why_closed_generic_new_gtlds_should_be_opposed/">
<span class="s3">registrars</span></a>, small businesses, <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/kleiman-to-icann-25sep12-en.pdf">
<span class="s3">non-commercial internet users</span></a>, and even <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/pangborn-to-crocker-et-al-31jan13-en.pdf">
<span class="s3">Microsoft</span></a> urged ICANN to deny these applications.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">Fortunately, ICANN heeded the public’s wishes, telling the applicants that they could operate these top-level domains only if they allowed others to register their own names within those domains. Amazon would not be the sole owner
of .book, and Google would not control .map as its private fiefdom. (Some .BRAND TLDs that are non-generic, like .honda, .hermes, and .hyatt were delegated.)</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">The GNSO New Domain Names Subsequent Procedures working group debated the “closed generics” issue over several years, but its final report in 2020 made no recommendation. Both the supporters and opponents of closed generics tried
to find some middle ground, but there was none to be found that protected competition and prevented monopolization of basic words.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">That’s where things sat until early this year, when the Chairman of the ICANN Board, out of the blue,
<a href="https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/botterman-to-ismail-fouquart-06mar22-en.pdf">
<span class="s3">asked</span></a> two bodies who don’t normally make policy to conduct a “dialogue” on closed generics: the GNSO Council and the GAC. The Board hasn’t voted on the issue, so it’s not clear how many members actually support moving forward.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">The Board’s letter was followed up a few days later by a
<a href="https://gac.icann.org/advice/correspondence/incoming/20220310/board-facilitated-process-framing-paper-for-gac-gnso-dialogue-on-closed-generics">
<span class="s3">paper</span></a> from ICANN Org. It claimed to be a “framing paper” on the proposed dialogue. But in reality, the paper presented a slanted and one-sided history of the issue, suggesting incorrectly that closed generics were “implicitly” allowed
under previous ICANN policies. The notion of “implicit” policy is anathema to a body whose legitimacy depends on open, transparent, and participatory decision-making. What’s more, the ICANN staff paper gives no weight to a huge precedent – one of ICANN’s largest
waves of global public input, which was almost unanimously opposed to closed generics.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">As the Board (or at least some of its members) try to start a “dialogue” that would keep the closed generics proposal alive, the ICANN Org paper went even further and tried to pre-determine the outcome of that dialogue, by suggesting
that some closed generic domains would have to be allowed, as long as lawyers for the massive companies that seek to control those domains could come up with convincing “public interest goals.”</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">As a result, the land rush for new private kingdoms at the highest level of the internet’s domain name system appears poised to begin again.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s2"><b>Still a Bad, Pro-Monopoly Idea</b></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">The problems with giving control of every possible domain name within a generic top-level domain to a single company are the same as they were in 2012 and in 2020.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">First, it’s out of step with trademark law. In the US and most countries, businesses can’t register a trademark in the generic term for that kind of business. That’s why a computer company and a record label can get trademarks
in the name “Apple,” but a fruit company cannot. Some trademark attorneys in the ICANN community have suggested that the US Supreme Court’s
<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-46_8n59.pdf"><span class="s3">decision</span></a> in the
<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/strange-bedfellows-eff-sides-pto-trademark-battle-over-bookingcom">
<span class="s3">Booking.com</span></a> case means that trademarks in generic words are now fair game, but that’s misleading. The Supreme Court ruled that adding “.com” to a generic word might result in a valid trademark—but the applicant still has to show
with evidence that the public associates that domain name with a particular business, not a general category. And that’s still
<a href="https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/TM-ExamGuide-3-20.pdf">
<span class="s3">difficult and rare</span></a>. If trademark law doesn’t allow companies to “own” generic words, as part of a domain name or otherwise, then ICANN shouldn’t be giving a single company what amounts to ownership over those words as top-level domains.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">Second, closed generics are bad policy because they give an unfair advantage to businesses that are already large and often dominant in their field. Control of a new gTLD doesn’t come cheap—the application fee alone is several
hundred thousand dollars, and ongoing fees to ICANN are also high. Allowing a bookstore owner named Garcia to run a website at garcia.book is a powerful tool for building a new independent business with its own online identity. A business with a memorable,
descriptive domain name like garcia.book is less dependent on its placement in Google’s search results, or Facebook’s news feed. If, instead, only Amazon could create websites that ended in .book, the small businesses of the world would lose that competitive
boost, and the image of Amazon as the only online bookseller would be even more durable.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">Third, closed generics would blast a big hole in the pro-competitive firewall at the heart of ICANN: the rule, now enshrined in ICANN’s registry agreements, that registries and registrars must remain separate. The structural separation
rule, which is relatively easy to enforce, was one of the policies that broke the Network Solutions monopoly on the domain name business at ICANN’s founding, and today it helps stop new monopolists from arising. Exclusive control over a generic top-level domain
would mean that single companies would act as the registry and the sole registrar for a top-level domain, creating new conflicts of interest and opportunities for abuse.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s2"><b>The Public Doesn’t Need Closed Generics, and “Public Interest” Promises Don’t Work in ICANN-Land</b></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">The Board’s letter shared the GAC’s 2013 suggestion that closed generics should be allowed if they could be structured to “serve the public interest.” But which “public” might that be? There’s no reason why giving full control
of a generic TLD to a single company would serve internet users better than a domain that’s open to all (or at least all members of a particular business or profession). The justifications EFF has seen boil down to arguing that someone, somewhere will come
up with an innovative use for a closed generic domain. That simply begs the question, while not explaining how exclusive control is a necessary feature.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">On top of that, ICANN does not have a good track record of holding domain registries to the “public interest” promises they make—its “PICDRP” enforcement mechanism is slow, cumbersome, and tends to embroil ICANN in content regulation,
which is something the organization is rightfully forbidden to do by its bylaws.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s2"><b>No More Sequels</b></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">Over the decade-plus of ICANN’s project to expand the top-level domains, no company has been allowed to operate a generic TLD as its private kingdom. And despite two rounds of heated debate, the community has not come up with
a plan for doing this well or fairly.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">It’s time to stop.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2">The only motive behind the continuing push for “compromise” on the closed generics issue is the wealthiest players’ desire to control the internet’s basic resources. ICANN should put its foot down at last, put the closed generics
idea on the shelf, and leave it there.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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