Domain nightmare

Plans to allow more brands and generic words to become top-level domains (TLDs) will make brand protection a nightmare, lawyers say. The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has backed the idea of increasing the number of TLDs from its current limit of 21. Pinsent Masons partner John Mackenzie says: “This has the potential for utter chaos. The attraction for domainers and cybersquatters is not going to be setting up a registry that matches someone else’s brand, it will be in the generic TLDs.”