WASHINGTON, September 17 /PRNewswire/ --

- With the Help of New Members

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) is pleased to announce
the addition of two new members: NIKE, Inc. and Wells Fargo & Company. Nike
and Wells Fargo have joined the leading brand owners of CADNA to help the
Coalition achieve its goal of stopping illegal and unethical infringement of
brands and trademarks online. Brand owners are growing increasingly concerned
with the direction that Internet governance has taken and are looking to make
an impact by getting involved in the public discussion of this issue. This is
a positive and encouraging reaction, especially in light of the recent
structural reorganization at ICANN, the Internet governing body, that
conflicts with the organization's duty to uphold public interest.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070724/DCTU006LOGO )

In a 13 to zero vote, ICANN's board unanimously approved a change to the
structure of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), a significant
policy making component of the organization. As a result of the vote, the
GNSO will be transitioned into a bicameral entity. The new structure, which
has many components that could be both positive and negative for brand owners
and Internet users, will divide the GNSO into "contracted party" and
"non-contracted party" houses. The contracted party house will be composed of
representatives from registrars, registries and a member of the nominating
committee. These parties have generally aligned interests, and will be able
to form a cohesive 50 percent voting block with little debate. The
non-contracted party house will be composed of commercial and non-commercial
stakeholders who represent ISPs, and the general business and intellectual
property communities. These parties' interests are significantly more
diverse, and will make consensus within the 50 percent voting block less
likely.

While heralded as a vast improvement, this change to the GNSO structure
is concerning to many because it is perceived as another step by ICANN that
will further advance the interests of domain industry insiders to the
detriment of Internet policies that could benefit the rest of us. It is of
particular concern since contracted parties now possess 50 percent of the
voting power, while commercial interests are left with just 23 percent of the
vote. This break down of representation will materially diminish the voice of
brands, and by proxy, consumers, from the decisions that determine the future
of Internet policy and governance.

ICANN's Board aims for the transition to this new structure to be
completed by January 2009; CADNA advocates postponing or reconsidering this
change. Internet user interests are already a minority voice within the ICANN
community and this change will have long-term, and potentially grave
implications on domain policy and Internet governance as we know it. Issues
such as the GNSO restructuring decision make it more important than ever for
brand owners to get involved in both CADNA and ICANN to protect the public
interest and ensure that ICANN's decisions benefit the Internet user
community as a whole.

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) is a 501(c)(6) non-profit
organization dedicated to ending the systemic domain name abuses that plague
the Internet today. For more information, please visit http://www.cadna.org.

Web site: http://www.cadna.org