ICANN and the New Top-Level Domains

February 25, 2019

Sponsors:

American University Washington College of Law
American University School of Communications
Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
Internet Governance Lab

We are in the midst of an historic expansion of internet domain names with more than 1200 new generic top-level domains (“gTLDs”) now competing with ‘.com’. This 5000% increase in gTLDs is the biggest change to the internet’s domain naming system in thirty years (and more are coming soon!). Accompanying these new gTLDs, are new and innovative–but little known–IP rights protection mechanisms. These developments could have a profound impact on the rights of IP owners, domain name registrants, and the public, and on the architecture of the internet.

Trademark Protections in the New gTLDs
-Michael Karanicolas, University of Toronto
-Brian King, MarkMonitor
-Rebecca Tushnet, Harvard Law School
-Brian Winterfeldt, Winterfeldt IP Group
-Mary Wong, ICANN

“Walled Gardens:” Should gTLDs Become Private Platforms?
-Becky BUrr, ICANN Board & Neustar
-Sarah Deutsch, ICANN Board
-Kathy Kleiman, Center for Information Technology, Princeton University
-Jeff Neuman, Com Laude/Valideus
-Mitch Stoltz, EFF