ANA Files Comments in Opposition to GAC Geographic Names Proposal

This morning, ANA filed comments to ICANN regarding the proposal from the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Sub-Group on Geographic Names to expand GAC control over the assignment of geo-based names through the creation of ill-defined new sources of GAC and local government objections. The proposal would create an unsafe new domain name environment for advertisers, consumers, and brand owners. It would undermine the international and national legal protection systems for trademarks and consumer protection laws, create extremely vague new sources of GAC and local government objections leading to uncertainty and confusion for users of the system, and also create new global law and policy on how geographic (“geo”) names are protected outside of the usual channels of law and policy making.

It is critical that this proposal be reevaluated by those on the GAC. In order for the voices of advertisers to be heard on this matter, we urge you to submit comments as we did before the December 31, 2014 deadline. If you would like to submit comments, please send them to future-geo-doc-comments@gac.icann.org and copy gacsec@gac.icann.org. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact Dan Jaffe at djaffe@ana.net or 202.293.2359.