We’re sorry that you had to find out about Online Reputation Management the hard way! You didn’t mention what type of online damaged you suffer, but you said something about negative commentary about your business on a third party website, right? If so, have you tried contacting whoever posted those comments? Maybe you can address their needs and their opinion of your business will change.

Rebranding is a lot of work and if it is not needed I would hate to see you go through such lengths to fix your brand’s reputation if there are other options available.

I would suggest you enlist the assistance of a social media monitoring tool and have a reputation management plan ready before the next threat hits you. We wrote about that too, I don’t know if you had a chance to read it? Here’s the link http://blog.brandprotect.com/Blog/bid/61898/This-will-save-your-business-Reputation-Management-Plan-and-a-Social-Media-Policy

One can only hope that an institution such as ICANN has done the necessary research in order to reach a conclusion where new gTLDs are necessary. If, regardless of costs and profits, by the end of the day security measures are increased and cybersquatting is avoided then this new venture will be worth the time and resources put into it.

As we mentioned in our blog, it is the responsibility of every company to be proactive before purchasing a gTLD – that involves looking for other options as well as preparing for how will their current reputation management handle these events.

Bearing in mind that ICANN won’t allow applications from individuals or sole proprietorships, effectively ignoring the interests of the vast majority of Internet users worldwide. Add in non-refundable deposits of $185,000 per extension, $500,000 for “integration” plus potentially unlimited annual costs and expenses etc, and how many new TLDs will actually see the light of day? Is this a commercial venture or simply a loss making exercise in vanity?

ICANN’s main aim has always been to convince Internet users they’re the only game in town and to try and herd everyone into a tiny part of an otherwise infinite universe….but that’s like telling people that the only place they can shop anywhere on Earth is a “convenient” Kroger store in Cincinnati. Yes, the current ICANN Internet set-up may be “convenient” right now, but then some years ago sending a telegram was convenient and sending an email meant inventing the computer (and World Wide Web). So….before making any “investment”, it’s worth considering whether instead of bringing organisations to the forefront, ICANN’s new TLDs will actually isolate you. It’s also worth considering that the Internet is evolving with more fitting and less expensive options coming on-stream.

Increasingly ICANN finds itself under pressure to modify. The rules have changed and Alternatives are already available; for example as well as “Dotcoms”, there are now free “Dashcoms” (e.g. create domains like “business-com” or rock-music” or “happy-birthday” at zero cost). As ICANN realises that competition is finally at hand, the true value (or the true cost) of their TLD “opportunities” will become all too apparent. Still, look on the bright side, at least ICANN and their associates will have made money from your efforts.

Disclaimer: Author provides dashcom (not dotcom) domain names.

You mention in your post that “ICANN won’t even consider applications from individuals or sole proprietorships, effectively ignoring the interests and needs of the majority of Internet users worldwide” – while the first part is true, the second part is far from accurate. On the list of “interests and needs of the majority of Internet users worldwide” registering domains for their own use is pretty low on the list. Users who wish to create content have myriad tools at their disposal, which are far more dynamic and developed than anything they could build themselves. Why build your own when you can buy a better solution for far less financial and time investment?

The second part of that statement “effectively ignoring the interests and needs of the majority of Internet users worldwide” would be more accurate if it said “effectively ignoring the interests and needs of the majority of business owners/operators worldwide”. In all fairness to ICANN – that’s the point. Current regulations around TLDs are in place for a reason, and that’s “fairness”. Without these regulations, think of how many opportunistic criminals would be registering trademarked domain name/TLD combinations en masse – if you don’t consider the Internet “the wild west” now, you certainly would then. The high buy-in for the new custom TLDs is in place because only the big players will actually benefit from the changes (and of course, the high buy-in will help finance some of the infrastructure changes required for implementation).

From what I can tell, Dashcom is simply alternative DNS. The downside, of course, is availability – if I set up “http://dylan-sachs” as my domain, unless the user trying to visit that “dashdomain” has dashcom technology implemented (either client-side or at the ISP level), they can’t see my site. For example, if my dashcom is hosted on ISP 1 (which would be running dashcom resolution), and my friend Joe who uses ISP 2 (which doesn’t run dashcom resolution) tries to visit my site, he’d get a 404 (or more likely these days, search engine results for the dashcom domain name). Kind of defeats the purpose, no?

You mention that domain resolution is via an app (the limitations of which I mentioned above), but “ISP links are coming online to negate that need” – unless ALL the ISPs are implementing this technology, the benefit over current DNS is negated, especially for businesses.

The average end-user is not going to want to deal with installing plug-ins or modifying their browser just to see a miniscule portion of the internet, even if it is going to be “their” portion of the internet – especially when they could sign up for a free, hosted site in seconds.

While I can see how dashcom would work in a corporate (read: closed network) environment, there are already basic, widely-used technologies that address this need. Add in the fact that local DNS is possible by modifying the HOSTS file of a Windows machine, and there is little to no impetus for the remotely-tech-savvy user to implement dashcom.

As ICANN won’t even consider applications from individuals or sole proprietorships, effectively ignoring the interests and needs of the majority of Internet users worldwide. Add to this equation non-refundable fees of $185,000 per TLD (plus potentially unlimited annual costs/expenses) and how many new ICANN TLDs will actually be launched?

ICANN’s main aims are to convince Internet users that they’re the only game in town and then try to herd everyone into a tiny part of an otherwise infinite universe. In this respect, ICANN has been quite successful. However, it’s rather like telling people that the only place they can shop on the entire planet is your local Safeway (not that one…the other one) and that really…..really, there’s nowhere else to go. Of course this is sheer nonsense and it’s understandable that people are starting to use Alternatives.

Anyone can now create their own set of Top Level Domains at no cost and without reference to ICANN, simply by opting to register NON-ICANN Dashcom (not Dotcom) domain names. Dashcoms are highly memorable & relevant web addresses such as “business-com”, “music-store”, “basket-ball”. Available in any language or text, you can also use Facebook Emoticons (eg: musical notes “♫♫-♫♫”).

Here is a part of the Internet that’s totally outside ICANN’s control yet able to exist quite happily alongside it. At present, resolution is via an APP, but new ISP links are coming online to negate that need.

It’s only a matter of time before other new options surface, and none of them will have anything to with ICANN.