The decision was reached with much opposition, especially from the advertising and marketing community. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has been the biggest force in speaking out against ICANN’s plan. It, along with 161 other organizations, formed the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight (CRIDO) in order to raise awareness of their concerns.

These organizations believe that the new gTLDs could be harmful to both brands and consumers. In the interview below, Doug Wood, the General Counsel for the ANA, told us ICANN’s plan was an unnecessary move.

“Consumers have no problem finding what they’re looking for on the Internet through search engine technology,” he said. “This is more of a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist, and the costs that will be incurred by brands and then, ultimately, pushed on to consumers… is going to be far in excess of any justifiable cause.”

Despite the criticism, ICANN began carrying out its plan earlier this month, a move that Dan Jaffe, the Executive Vice President of Government Relations for ANA, calls both “reckless” and “premature.”

As he explained to us, there are problems such as cyber squatting and phishing that exist in the current system. That said, he thinks that those issues need to be addressed before the floodgates are opened for new top-level domains.

“Unfortunately in the existing system, there are serious problems of cyber squatting, typo squatting, phishing, the placement of malware, [and] the inability to find out who, in fact, really owns Internet addresses,” he said. “We’re afraid unless these types of problems are resolved that suddenly opening the top-level domains to as many as 1,000 new top-level domains, which is a thousand percent increase over the existing systems, it would be very, very dangerous both to businesses and consumers. ”

ANA and CRIDO have reached out to ICANN on several occasions in an effort to get the decision reversed. The FTC and various officials in the U.S. government have also expressed their concerns, but Jaffe told us that ICANN has not responded.

One of the big concerns that these groups have is that businesses will feel pressured to spend the $185,000 or more to keep a competitor or worse from buying their domain name. ICANN, however, says that it has protections in place such as its “Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy” that protect businesses from taking defensive measures.

“They have put in several protections, but they have never run a pilot project to see if those various protections really work in the real world,” said Jaffe.

“ICANN is running some of the fundamental areas of the Internet and, therefore, we want to make sure they run them properly or ICANN’s own future will seriously be undermined,” he added.

Last week, ICANN announced that it has already approved 25 successful registrants for new domains. Jaffe told us that the full impact of the move would not be felt until April when ICANN stops accepting applications and reveals the new registrants.

In the meantime, he is hoping that the U.S. Department of Commerce uses its Affirmation of Commitments authority and its oversight of the IANA contracts to get ICANN’s attention.

“We think this is absolutely a top issue for the business community across the whole of the world,” he said. “[It] needs to be done appropriately, or it will severely undermine the trust that has begun to be built up to make the Internet one of the largest marketplaces in history, the largest marketplace in history.”

Still, as fun as it might be to register face.book or lexa.pro, those site pranks will cost you a cool $185,000 a pop.

That price tag might seem like a strong enough preventive measure to keep everyday buffoons from taking advantage of the names of corporations but the U.S. government is still wary of ICANN’s new offerings. Lawerence Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information for the Department of Commerce, met with representatives from several businesses to discuss ICANN’s decision. As Bloomberg puts it, “General Electric Co. (GE), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Coca-Cola Co. (KO) are among more than 40 companies that have joined with the Association of National Advertisers to oppose the expansion, saying it will increase costs for companies, confuse customers and create new risks of Internet fraud.”

In a letter to ICANN citing concerns of potential cybersquatting of websites including brand names and increased confusion among consumers, ANA President Robert D. Liodice wrote:

The ANA and its membership regard the Program as not merely unsupportable, but potentially disastrous — exacting outrageous fees and costs, requiring massive diversion of resources, and instituting an application, evaluation and dispute resolution process that is certain to lead to increased contention and costly federal and international legal action with no demonstrable benefit to businesses or consumers. These concerns are especially heightened in an economy that day by day continues to pose ever-increasing challenges and unprecedented uncertainties for businesses and consumers worldwide. Another layer of unnecessary and unjustifiable costs is the last thing the selling and buying public needs in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Corporations already patrol the Internet for websites that they believe violate trademarks. Additionally, they don’t want you getting your rocks off at the expense of their namesake. Just try visiting microsoft.xxx, facebook.xxx, apple.xxx, amazon.xxx, or even twitter.xxx. All of these URLs present visitors with the same message:

And yeah, you barely even need to take one guess as to who the owners of those respective domains might be. Corporations have a steady practice of snatching up websites that they have zero intention of using solely to prevent the URLs from being used by cybersquatters and shady businesses.

ICANN acknowledged all of the above concerns and stated that they’re “going to go slow” in divvying out the new URLs to applicants. Regardless, Reuters reports that “ICANN has no plans to delay rollout of the top level domain expansion, a goal that is to allow more innovation in website addresses and to open the space to the non-Latin alphabets. It has pledged a quick take-down for trademark violators under the new system.”

All said, it seems a little presumptuous of businesses to assume that the average Internet user would be duped by a site like facebook.xxx. Besides, who’s to say that apple.xx wouldn’t be a legitimate site? Maybe there’s an untapped market out there for people with antediluvian fetishes that such a URL would perfectly satisfy? Besides, it’s not just anybody that’s going to fork over nearly $200K in order to create such a website. As Mr. Liodice mentioned above, the U.S. economy is still in crisis and people might wanna hold onto that money for more meaningful purposes.

What do you think? Is this brand protection overkill or do these corporations have a fair complaint for protecting their brand? Add your comments to the discussion below.

Would you prefer to see .brand or .com going forward? What do you think?

Advertisers are outraged by ICANN’s decision and have even contacted the corporation to express their concerns about the changes. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is among the groups in opposition because it believes the expanded generic top-level domains (gTLD) could be harmful to brands and consumers.

“The reality is, when we looked at the ICANN report when they adopted this, their benefits that they’re expressing are purely speculative,” said Doug Wood, General Counsel for the ANA.

As he explained, the expansion of domain names has been debated since the 1990′s, even before ICANN existed. The hope was to help consumers find information more easily. ICANN believes that this move will help to solve this problem. Wood, however, told us that this problem no longer exists since search engines and technology have become so advanced.

“Consumers have no problem finding what they’re looking for on the Internet through search engine technology,” he said. “This is more of a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist, and the costs that will be incurred by brands and then, ultimately, pushed on to consumers… is going to be far in excess of any justifiable cause.”

The costs he is referring to involve the $185,000 that brands would have to pay to simply apply for a new domain name. Many corporations have multiple brands, which means that they would need to purchase 100s of domains. Although these high costs would likely be transferred to consumers in order to make the investment worthwhile, brands believe that they would have to consider them to prevent cyber squatting and phishing.

Wood told us that it might be different if there were a shortage of domain names, but that is not the case. He said ICANN introduced new domain names including .biz and .travel a few years ago, but that they haven’t been widely adopted. Esther Dyson, who is the former board chair of ICANN, also wrote in a piece on the Australian Broadcasting Network that there was no shortage of domain names.

She opposes the move from ICANN as well and even wrote that it didn’t have any value:

The problem is that expanding the namespace – allowing anyone to register a new TLD such as .apple – doesn’t actually create any new value. The value is in people’s heads – in the meanings of the words and the brand associations – not in the expanded namespace. In fact, the new approach carves up the namespace: the value formerly associated with Apple could now be divided into Apple.computers, apple.phone, ipod.apple, and so on. If this sounds confusing, that is because it is.

ICANN justifies their action by saying that it will create new opportunities. While Wood agrees that the new domains will do this, he said that the people who would benefit from them are domain sellers, trademark lawyers, and domain consultants.

“The bottom line is simple – the Internet has matured quite well, brands have supported it from its inception, [and] consumers have used it now to increase their choices in the marketplace,” he pointed out. “They don’t need any more TLDs to accomplish that.”

“The only thing that these new TLDs will do, from what we can see, is increase the income and opportunities for consultants,” he added.

When the ANA notified ICANN of its concerns, Wood said ICANN defended its decision based on the grounds that it had debated the topic for several years.

The ANA and other organizations such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) are continuing to fight the domain changes. According to Wood, they hope to create enough awareness that ICANN will reconsider its decision.

Do you think ICANN should reverse its expansion of domain names?

Are the new domains a good idea? Tell us what you think.

ICANN is to start accepting applications for new gTLDs on January 12, 2012. The application period will run until April. They’re expected to roll out late next year.

The IAB, however, is calling on ICANN to withdraw this plan, saying it will cause “incalculable financial damage to brand owners, including the hundreds of media brands in its membership.”

The plan would allow brands to apply for domains that end in their name. Like “.webpronews” or “.pepsi” and so on. However, it would also open the door for cyber squatting, according to the IAB, as well as include what the organization calls “exorbitant fees for web publishers and brand marketers.”

The plan, the IAB says, would “come at an extremely high cost to publishers and advertisers, and would also offer ‘cyber squatters’ an opportunity to harm a brand’s integrity and/or profit greatly from their bad-faith domain registrations.”

IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg said, “ICANN’s potentially momentous change seems to have been made in a top-down star chamber. There appears to have been no economic impact research, no full and open stakeholder discussions, and little concern for the delicate balance of the Internet ecosystem. This could be disastrous for the media brand owners we represent and the brand owners with which they work. We hope that ICANN will reconsider both this ill-considered decision and the process by which it was reached.”

IAB – Interactive Advertising BureauThe IAB today called on ICANN to withdraw its controversial new domain-naming plan. Why their plan could be disastrous to media brand owners: http://ow.ly/63vMs 4 hours ago · 3 likes · 0 comments

The IAB’s words follow a similar campaign from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). Earlier this month, ANA President and CEO Robert Liodice published a letter to ICANN President Rod Beckstrom outlining the organization’s concerns. In the letter, he says the plan is economically unsupportable, and likely to cause irreparable harm and damage.”

The ANA is made up up over 400 companies, which represent over 10,000 brands.

“At the same time, the Program contravenes the legal rights of brand owners and jeopardizes the safety of consumers,” the letter continued. “By introducing confusion into the marketplace and increasing the likelihood of cybersquatting and other malicious conduct, the Program diminishes the power of trademarks to serve as strong, accurate and reliable symbols of source and quality in the marketplace. Brand confusion, dilution, and other abuse also poses risks of cyber predator harms, consumer privacy violations, identity theft, and cyber security breaches. The decision to go forward with the Program also clearly violates sound public policy and constitutes a breach of ICANN’s own Code of Conduct and its undertakings with the United States Department of Commerce as most recently embodied in the Affirmation of Commitments.”

You can read it in its entirety here. Its a 9-page document.

Are these concerns overblown?

Sean Callahan at BtoB quotes Forrester Research analyst Jeff Ernst as saying, “It is too early to tell how big the malicious threat is. $185,000 is a lot of money to spend for a cybersquatter compared to a $10 dot-com domain name at GoDaddy.”

Beckstrom responded to Liodice’s letter, saying, “The June 2011 decision to proceed with the program followed six years of inclusive policy development and implementation planning,” and “One clear directive of the consensus policy advice on which the program is built is that TLDs should not infringe the existing legal rights of others. The objection process and other safeguards eliminate the need for ‘defensive’ gTLD applications because, where an infringement of legal rights can be established using these processes, an application will not be approved.”

Liodice responded to the response, saying, “We are not surprised by ICANN’s response although disappointed that ICANN chose to defend its process and deny any doubt as to consensus. Rather, ICANN needs to respond to the real concern from the brand owner community. There is no question that this Program will increase brand owners’ costs by billions of dollars. We should not be debating if 40 or 45 comment periods were held; instead, ICANN should be justifying its economic analysis regarding the Program against the staggering costs to brands. ANA welcomes further discussions and an opportunity for further economic study to quantify the need for more TLDs and what it will mean for industry and other stakeholders, such as the public interest community who will face the same brand dilution concerns.”

ANA’s General Counsel Doug Wood of Reed Smith LLP added, “Now is not the time for either side to ‘dig in its heels’ much less defend the process, especially in a depressed economy. ANA has raised real concerns regarding economic losses, brand dilution and resultant privacy / cyber-security harms. In light of our shared goals of a safe and stable global Internet, ICANN should return to the negotiating table and work with all concerned parties, including the ANA and its members, to resolve brand owners’ legitimate concerns in a manner consistent with ICANN’s consensus obligations.”

What do you think? Do you have concerns over ICANN’s plan or are these organizations overreacting? Share your thoughts.

According to the results, about 66 percent of marketers utilized social media this year, up from just 20% in 2007. Half of those surveyed use viral videos, up from a quarter in 2007.

Top social networks used by marketers according to the survey:

- Facebook (74 percent)
- YouTube (65 percent)
- Twitter (63 percent)
- LinkedIn (60 percent)

The most effective newer media platforms in 2009 according to the survey:

- Search engine marketing (SEM) (65 percent)
- Own Web site (59 percent)
- SEO (55 percent)
- E-mail marketing (45 percent)

"As more media platforms become available, it is imperative that all marketers continue to assess their capabilities and select the platforms that are best suited to help them meet their brand’s goals and objectives," said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA. "With this proliferation of media, marketers must work harder, survey the entire landscape available to them and create their brand’s most optimal media mix."

The survey highlights the differences in social media use among B2B and B2C marketers. B2C use more mobile and Facebook marketing, while B2B use LinkedIn and even Twitter more. B2C marketers get more out of search engine marketing, while B2B marketers get more out of webinars.

When it comes to paying for social media campaigns, 55 percent of those surveyed shifted funds from their traditional media budgets, while 48% shifted funds from other marketing communications budgets. Only 26% created an incremental budget. ROI and metrics are still the top concerns companies have about social media.

Groups involved are the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), the Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB), and of course the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

"Consumers deserve transparency regarding the collection and use of their data for behavioral advertising purposes. I am gratified that a group of influential associations – representing a significant component of the Internet community – has responded to so many of the privacy concerns raised by my colleagues and myself,” says Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour.

What Google Has to Say

Google recently testified in Washington regarding privacy and advertising. Highlighted in the testimony were three main topics:

- Google’s main advertising products and the benefits Google believes online advertising brings to advertisers, online publishers, and individual Internet users

- Google’s approach to privacy, specific steps that the company takes to protect users’ privacy, and the release of interest-based advertising

- Ideas and recommendations for how to better protect Internet users’ privacy with respect to advertising, as well as more generally

You can read the entire testimony here (pdf).

In a post on Google Public Policy Blog today, Google Managing Policy Counsel Pablo Chavez talked about the principles and Google’s own behavioral-based or "interest-based" advertising.

"When we launched our own interest-based advertising product in March, we worked hard to include several innovative features to give users more control and information — including ads labeled ‘Ads by Google,’ a tool called the Ads Preferences Manager (which lets users view, add, and remove the categories that are used to show them interest-based ads), and the choice to opt out of interest-based ads altogether," says Chavez.

"One of the key strengths of the principles is the fact that they apply to a broad range of companies participating in online advertising — advertisers, publishers, and ad networks," adds Chavez. "Of course, for any self-regulatory effort to be effective, there has to be some kind of enforcement process. Between now and early 2010 — when the principles are expected to be implemented — the Better Business Bureau and Direct Marketing Association, two of the groups involved, will work to set up that process to make sure it has real teeth."

The Principles

So what are these principles? There are seven of them:

1. The Education Principle
2. The Transparency Principle
3a. The Consumer Control Principle
3b.The Consumer Control Principle (applies to service providers)
4. The Data Security Principle
5. The Material Changes Principle
6. The Sensitive Data Principle
7. The Accountability Principle

I won’t get into all of the specific details of each one here, but you can read the entire document here if you are interested. Either way, it is good to see that these organizations are taking consumer privacy this seriously.

Branding Through Social Networks

What I find interesting is that although other studies have shown that business professionals tend to prefer LinkedIn as their social network of choice, when asked which one the attendees prefer to drive their brand, LinkedIn was not on top. In fact, it was fifth, but if you want to get technical, it was more like third, because number one was "none" at 32% and "all" was fourth at 12%. YouTube and Facebook made up 20% and 18% respectively with LinkedIn coming in at 10%.

This data isn’t really that surprising, given that the question is related to branding, and is being answered, presumably by marketers primarily. YouTube and Facebook are big branding tools while LinkedIn is more of a straight networking tool. Of course there is some obvious overlap between them all when it comes to how much networking and branding can be done among any of them, but LinkedIn is often more associated with business relationship-building, while YouTube and Facebook are associated with consumers and the general population. Although, I would consider MySpace to be in the latter category, it came in below LinkedIn at just 6%, and perhaps even more surprisingly, Twitter came in at a mere 3%.

Marketing and Media Plans for the Future

Given the state of the economy, it is not surprising that the majority plan on altering their marketing budgets heading into the next year. What is perhaps a little surprising is that nearly as many plan to spend more on marketing than as plan to reduce their budgets. Here’s how they answered:

- Spending will be reduced (33%)

- Spending will be constant / marketing mix will be reallocated (33%)

- Surprisingly, we will spend more (27%)

- No changes, we will keep everything status quo (8%)

 Getting a little more specific, attendees were asked just how they intend to spend in 2009 when compared to 2008. They answered:

- Increase spending more than 10% (26%)

- Increase spending less than 10% (13%)

- Hold stable (28%)

-Decrease spending less than 10% (14%)

- Decrease spending more than 10% (19%)

 Measuring Brand Growth

Measuring brand growth is not an exact science, and this is one reason that many businesses are still hesitant to adopt social media strategies. It is hard for business owners and managers to weigh brand growth against productivity. While not specific to social media, attendees of the conference were asked, "How does your CEO view your marketing efforts with respect to growth?" The overwhelming majority (56%) said their CEOs view them as a brand-building investment. 21% viewed them as an unaccountable but necessary expense, while 8% considered them an unnecessary expense and 15% just didn’t know.

When it comes to how companies are measuring growth, 70% said by sales and net income, while 15% cited third party brand equity valuations, 9% said shareholder value, 4% said household penetration, and 3% said company culture. That’s an interesting one. Based on this logic, I guess Google would know they are doing well based simply on their cafeterias, daycare establishments, gyms, etc.

The ANA’s polling results have provided an insightful look into how marketers are thinking going into a new year, leaving behind one that has trumpeted in economic downturn most of the way across the board. Marketing is going to be perhaps even more important than usual as business struggle to get the few dollars that many consumers have left to spend. Unfortunately, the money of those businesses is also limited.

Reaching the customer means coordinating an entire marketing campaign so that it persists in its relevancy whenever the customer makes contact with a brand. That’s integrated marketing communications, at least as Wikipedia has it recorded.

ANA blogger Will Waugh discussed his organization’s survey of over a hundred senior marketers at their Marketing Maestros blog. While the formal presentation of the survey’s results won’t happen until an October conference, Waugh listed the top ten issues weighing on the shoulders of the marketing influential.

"Integrated marketing being number 1 does not surprise me, nor should it anyone else in this space as the marketing landscape continues to transform," Waugh said.

The top four results shuffled around from the 2006 list, with accountability dropping from first to second. It could be that marketers are more comfortable with their ability to handle a potential crisis in 2007, enough to concentrate on the more visionary aspects of integrated communications.

The top ten looked like this:

1. Integrated marketing communications
2. Accountability
3. Aligning marketing organization with innovation
4. Building strong brands
5. Media proliferation
6. Consumer control over what and how they view advertising
7. Globalization of marketing efforts
8. Growth of multicultural consumer segments
9. Advertising creative that achieves business results
10. Attracting and retaining top talent

That last result grabbed Waugh’s attention; he asked, "The real question for those of us marketers out there is, should we be concerned that ‘attracting and retaining top talent’ is the least of their worries?"

There are a couple of people the WebProNews writers keep a virtual eye on, out of the many who comprise the search industry niche and the greater world of tech. Danny Sullivan requires no introduction to our readership, while former Valleywag writer turned contributor Nick Douglas and his nine-month run on that site may have been under the radar to many.

Both guys are immensely talented writers, and have hit the ground running with their new endeavors. One might be inclined to think their former sites, Search Engine Watch and Valleywag, may have suffered from their departures.

Looking at a Compete Snapshot for each tells a different story. Both sites have blossomed in traffic without their best-known talent; it must be cautioned that Compete does not track international visitors, which could impact either of them negatively.

Search Engine Watch dipped as November 2006 ended and Danny left the site. The next month saw traffic begin an increase that continued to rise through February 2007. Valleywag’s unceremonious dumping of Douglas in early November 2006, in favor of a "more money, less sex" edict from Gawker publisher Nick Denton, has seen traffic rise from then until January, when it began to decline.

A site can continue without its signature talent. The marketing executives who serve as movers and shakers feel the same way about their initiatives. Talent matters, but maybe not as much as some may think, especially in the corner offices of senior ad people.

Even better, it will likely soon begin hemorrhaging dollars to interactive and other channels. What does this mean? We’re entering the golden age of experimentation. This will include a lot of dollars going toward interactive and word of mouth marketing. Reading this study is like standing under a giant pinata that just exploded with enough candy to go around for all of us.

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Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.