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→Senate Hearing on New gTLD Program
* [[Kurt Pritz]], ICANN Senior Vice President
* [[Kurt Pritz]], ICANN Senior Vice President
Angela Williams represented concerns of the members of the [[NPOC|Not-for-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency]] (NPOC) during the Senate hearing. In her testimony, she raised the budgetary, public confusions and cybersquatting issues. According to her, the increased risk of public confusions compromise the internet security and it would be more expensive for entities particularly not-for-profit organizations to protect their brand names/trademarks against fraud, [[cybersquatting]] and trademark infringement. She also pointed out that not-for-profit-organizations cannot afford the amount of money needed to become a domain name registry to ensure brand protection. Williams encouraged ICANN to consider the concerns of the members of the NPOC. She also recommended that verified not-for-profit organizations be allowed to exempt their their trademarks from any other applicant in the new gTLD Program at no cost or drastically reduced fee, eliminate or drastically reduce the costs of the new gTLD program for verified not-for-profit organizations and to strengthen the mechanisms for trademark protection.<ref>[http://commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=56a49ede-865f-4bbe-9635-58d0b59add7b Testimony of Angela F. Williams, Senate Hearing, Dec. 8, 2012]</ref>
===Testimonies during the Senate Hearing===
'''Angela Williams''' represented the concerns of the members of the [[NPOC|Not-for-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency]] (NPOC) during the Senate hearing. In her testimony, she raised the budgetary, public confusions and cybersquatting issues. According to her, the increased risk of public confusions compromise the internet security and it would be more expensive for entities particularly not-for-profit organizations to protect their brand names/trademarks against fraud, [[cybersquatting]] and trademark infringement. She also pointed out that not-for-profit-organizations cannot afford the amount of money needed to become a domain name registry to ensure brand protection. Williams encouraged ICANN to consider the concerns of the members of the NPOC. She also recommended that verified not-for-profit organizations be allowed to exempt their their trademarks from any other applicant in the new gTLD Program at no cost or drastically reduced fee, eliminate or drastically reduce the costs of the new gTLD program for verified not-for-profit organizations and to strengthen the mechanisms for trademark protection.<ref>[http://commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=56a49ede-865f-4bbe-9635-58d0b59add7b Testimony of Angela F. Williams, Senate Hearing, Dec. 8, 2012]</ref>
During the hearing, '''Dan Jaffe''' testified that the new gTLD program is "bad for consumers, marketers and the entire online marketplace" and enumerated different reasons why it is necessary to the stop its implementation. According to him, there is no substantial evidence that the new gTLD program will promote competition, relieve the scarcity of domain name space and support differentiated services and new products. He also cited that the new gTLD program has serious economic impact. Brand owners might be compelled to file for defensive registrations to protect their trademarks or intellectual property rights. There is a possibility of misappropriation of intellectual property rights, domain navigation dilution, increased risk of cybersquatting, reduce investments from intellectual property owners and losses from failed TLDs. Jaffe supported his claims using the “Economic Considerations in the Expansion of Generic TopLevel Domain Names, Phase II Report: Case Studies,” a study commissioned by ICANN on December 2010. In addition, he also emphasized the new gTLD programs lacks consensus and ICANN failed to meet the "bottom-up, consensus driven approach to policy development." Furthermore, he pointed out that the application fee is too expensive and harmful for brand owners and he also raised the concerns regarding conflict of interest after [[Peter Dengate Thrush]] decided to join Minds + Machines as Executive Chairman immediately after his term as chairman of ICANN. Thrush strongly pushed approval of the new gTLD program.<ref>
[http://commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=8c7e6c3b-a6b8-41a9-b59a-681dd278249f Testimony of Daniel L. Jaffe, Hearing on ICANN’s Expansion of Top Level Domains, Dec. 8, 2012]</ref>
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