The Internet Commerce Association’s legislative agenda includes, while not being limited to, several key issues related to the protection of domains and the rights of domain registrants:
- Best Practice Leadership. The ICA’s Member Code of Conduct expresses the ICA’s recognition of the responsibilities of its members to the intellectual property, domain name, and Internet communities at large and will guide members in conducting their domain name investment and development activities with professionalism, respect and integrity.
- Ending Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. Respect for trademark owner’s rights must be balanced by registrant’s rights especially for domain names that have generic meaning. Too often the UDRP dispute system is used to strip legitimate owners of domains without full respect of registrant rights.
- Promote Competitive Pricing. As ICANN and registry operators renew their agreements, the ICA is on the watch to ensure domain registration and related fees are applied fairly and with transparency.
- Condemning & Fighting Fraud. Whether click fraud, phishing, child pornography or other types of online criminal activity taking place on the Internet, the ICA cooperates with other groups who are working to end domain name abuse that is harmful to consumer confidence in Internet commerce.
- Shining a Light on Internet Governance. As the domain space looks to expand with the introduction of new gTLDs, the ICA works hard to ensure optimum practices in the transparency of ICANN, its relationship with the U.S. government, the administration of dispute resolution mechanisms, and the rules and laws relating to the WHOIS database and privacy protection.
Regular updates will be provided to members regarding the current status of legislation or actions by the administration related to our issues on an ongoing basis.