Introduction and Historical Background to ICANN’s Rights Protection Mechanisms for New gTLDs
Torsten Bettinger · 2015
Abstract In 2005, in order to fulfil its mission of enhancing competition, innovation and consumer choice in the generic top-level domains (gTLDs), ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) began a policy development process to consider the introduction of new gTLDs after the trial rounds conducted in 2000 and 2003. With the dramatic global increase in Internet usage, and its adoption as a permanent fixture in the business world, the number of attractive, short domain names available on the open market has decreased rapidly in recent years.