Olympics say they’ll sue ICANN, but they were supposed to meet with ICANN earlier this year to hash our their differences.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has again informed ICANN that it will file a lawsuit if its trademarks are not added to a restrictions list for new domain names and if other protections aren’t instituted.
Back in April 2009 the IOC first threatened to sue ICANN over the introduction of new top level domain names. In March of this year it requested a special meeting with ICANN to discuss the issue. At the time I wrote:
Get in line, guys. Just about every Fortune 500 has trademarks “protected around the world in many different waysâ€. ICANN should politely decline this meeting and invite IOC to attend the next ICANN meeting in Brussels.
To my great surprise, ICANN responded and invited (pdf) the IOC to a face-to-face meeting.
So what happened? Did the IOC not take ICANN up on its offer? Or did the meeting just not go the way IOC wanted it to?
Good thing ICANN is setting aside 1/3 of application fees to fight legal challenges.
David J Castello says
These guys have always been my #1 choice to wreak havoc when the new TLDs are released and they have the firepower to do it. They’re laying the groundwork to go after ICANN when (not if) the owners of the new TLDs sell any name with the word Olympic(s) in it.
gpmgroup says
They were not the only ones who have expressed disapproval with ICANNs approach to new gTLDs. Many of the largest corportations in America together with IOC, even the BBC and the Vatican have all expressed their concern but ICANN hasn’t really moved very far away from their original proposal two years ago.
Whats really worrying is one of the four overarching issues has hardly been discussed yet ICANN is now referring to the “Final Applicant Guidebook”.