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The biggest overhaul yet of the system of internet domain names is set to affect tens of thousands of established online brand names.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the worldwide authority, is inviting applications for the exclusive global ownership of any root suffix. Each bid must be accompanied by a non-refundable fee of $185,000 (Dh680,000).
Put simply, this will enable successful applicants to corner markets by creating an exclusive suffix such as dot-Dubai, dot-hotel, dot-Emirates, dot-Gulf or dot-Arabian. They will also be able to create hundreds of sub-brands such as jobs.Dubai, cheap.hotels or fly.Arabian.
Existing brand name identities all over the world that contain a word allocated as a suffix under the new system will be affected.
Identities will have to be renamed or modified to be considered under the new guidelines.
Yet 99 per cent of brand holders worldwide know nothing about the imminent shake-up, which could cause major problems for both large and small companies.
Icann's policies and their likely impact on GCC markets are being monitored by trademark attorney Jon Parker, Executive Partner at the Dubai branch of law firm Rouse.
He said: "We have some serious parties in discussions about securing dot-Dubai, dot-Emirates and also dot-Kuwait," he said. "The complex filing and due diligence procedures ensure a very high integrity for this new revolutionary set of cyber tools. A major shift on global domain name registration is upon us."
Parker supports the moves by Icann which, he said, make a great deal of sense for global players.
"We have to address complex fail-safe sub-naming architecture issues when proposed names are simply not a clear-cut option," he said.
"An application to secure dot-Emirates as a sovereign and geographic name identity is one thing."
But it takes a complicated twist in the case of Emirates airline, a top global brand, and is further complicated as there are hundreds of other businesses using Emirates in their corporate names.
"There are lots of options to change and modify a brand identity but some will be very painful and challenging," Parker added.
"Most clients around the world are rapidly dropping the endless registrations of domain names to protect themselves using different suffixes such as dot-info or dot-biz. They are now aiming for a solid single name identity solution."
This can be achieved by companies with a unique global identity. The rest will have to either modify or change their names to be considered under the new guidelines.
The brands Sony and Panasonic are 100 per cent owned by the respective company and are classed as five-star standard names, which will not be affected by the shake-up.
But names based on family, geographic or dictionary words such as Al Khaleej, Al Jazeera, Arabian, Gulf, united, national, eastern, central, palm, desert or pearl are used by many firms and therefore face an uncertain future.
For every million business names registered around the world there is only one five-star standard name identity. The major players will need a professional game plan to address the issues thrown up by the Icann shake-up.
The rules and the prices just released at www. icann.org are fair and are designed to raise the internet to a much higher next level.
This loss of many existing brand names will be sad but will not apply exclusively to Dubai - in fact the effects will be worse in India and all over the old and emerging world. During the last century, branding experts ignored global naming issues. Under the new advanced global cyber-branding scheme names will become the ultimate flag carriers of a brand, skating around the world and connecting with the right customers. The latest online multimedia-search and cyber-branding tools mean that the exclusive control of a suffix will propel a brand to the stratosphere overnight.
A new report by ABC Namebank, The New-Name-Economy & 2010 Cyber Branding Strategies, estimates that the new Icann process will generate $33 billion in fees in the first three years. The public will become the real beneficiaries as a billion new users come online. Millions of new interactive gateways will open and thousands of new global brands will emerge.
There are already some 18,700 companies in the world with diluted names that will be affected by this new policy. They need to secure layers around their existing brand name identities.
Most big companies are already spending millions pushing poorly crafted names or spending millions on defending trademark issues, so the $185,000 fee is a bargain.
In the GCC, an authoritative evaluation of all the current names is a must. This process requires a proven methodology related to languages, phonetics, translations, global availability, secondary meanings, trademark laws, domain registration laws and creative naming architecture.
This should not be confused with graphic expertise of combining logos with slogans. This is not branding by graphics, rather it is strictly global naming with worldwide exclusivity.
There is a rare opportunity for businesses during the current worldwide meltdown of old established brands. Global image shifts are creating voids that need to be filled with new global standard icons. In Dubai there is a need for a sophisticated world-class consultancy with global expertise to cater to the specific needs of Arab businesses.
Brand-holders must face three tough question: What are the immediate and future threats to their current name identity? What are the real and fail-safe options they have for a partial or a full name change? And under what global rules will they find the perfect solution acceptable to their wider customer base, consistent with their internal marketing goals and equally achievable under the new Icann policies?
ABC Namebank is conducting exclusive seminars on these issues.
What is clear is that without global naming there is no such thing as marketing.
Self-righteous attempts to establish ownership of a name are no longer practical. From now on it's all about global naming laws, Icann and the strict allocation of exclusive name licences designed to connect with billions of new customers.
Naseem Javed is an authority on global naming, corporate images and cyber-branding. He is the founder of ABC Namebank and the author of Naming for Power and Domain Wars. Javed is working on global name identity projects and lectures on Icann issues at conferences.
What's ICANN?
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California, and is a non-profit corporation created on September 18, 1998.
Its aim is to oversee a number of internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the US government by other organisations, notably the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.
The tasks of Icann include responsibility for internet protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code top level domain name system management, and root server system management functions.
More generically, Icann is responsible for managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses. To date, much of its work has concerned the introduction of new generic top-level domains. Its other primary functions involve helping preserve the operational stability of the internet, to promote competition, to achieve broad representation of global Internet community, and to develop policies appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.
By Naseem Javed
© Emirates Business 24/7 2008
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