ICANN awarding of closed generic TLDS - Statement of French Publishers Association (SNE)
Dear Sirs, The French Publishers Association (SNE) is France's trade association of book publishers. It represents approximately 600 member companies whose combined business endeavors account for the bulk of French publishing and whose total turnover was close to 3 billion € in 2012 (4.3 billion € expressed at the retail selling price). The SNE's missions include to advocate publishers' interests, to support creativity by defending freedom to publish and promoting the respect of intellectual property rights, to promote and to defend the fixed book price, and to promote literacy. The SNE represents the French publishing profession as a member of the Federation of European Publishers (FEP) whose position on this initiative here attached it fully supports. In the framework of the current ICANN consultation on the topic of "closed generic" gTLD applications, the SNE would like to express its opposition regarding any applications for a “closed generic” gTLD, most notably .book, .read and .author (collectively the "Book TLDs"). This could have for consequence to grant an exclusivity for the use of a specific gTLD to an economic actor and therefore deprive its competitors to use this first level domain name. If a major distribution stakeholder had a monopoly over such essential strategic tools for e-commerce, this would have dramatic consequences on competition. Yours faithfully Christine de Mazières Syndicat National de l’Edition Director P/O Julien Chouraqui Chargé de mission - Affaires juridiques Syndicat national de l'édition Attachment:
ICANN-letter-closedgenericTLD-clean.pdf |