Accor comments on GAC Safeguard Advice
The following comments are submitted on behalf of Accor. Accor, the world's leading hotel operator and market leader in Europe, is present in 92 countries with more than 3,500 hotels and 450,000 rooms under various hotel brands including Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Grand Mercure, Novotel, Suite Novotel, Mercure, Adagio, ibis, ibis Styles, ibis Budget, Hotel Formule 1, hotelF1 and Thalassa sea & spa. With more than 160,000 employees in Accor branded hotels worldwide, the Group offers its clients and partners nearly 45 years of know-how and expertise. Accor operates several websites through which Internet users can quickly and easily find and book hotels. The Governmental Advisory Committee issued on 11 April 2013 its first GAC Advice - the GAC Beijing Communiqué - in which it lists safeguards applicable to broad categories of new gTLD strings. Among these categories, the GAC targets specifically a category known as "Closed Generic gTLD Applications" under the term Exclusive Access. The GAC makes clear that "for strings representing generic terms, exclusive registry access should serve a public interest goal." The GAC has identified a non-exhaustive list of 60 strings that it considers to be generic terms, where the applicant is currently proposing to provide exclusive registry access. This list includes the applications for .hotel (application # 1-1249-36568 by Despegar Online SRL) and .hotels (application # 1-1016-75482 by Booking.com B.V.). Accor publicly expressed its opposition to these applications and also the applications for .hoteis and .hoteles (application # 1-1249-87712 and application # 1-1249-1940 Despegar Online SRL) which are all based on a "Closed Registry" model, first by publishing Public Comments on applied-for strings in September 2012, and second in participating to the public comment period on the "Closed Generic gTLD Applications in February 2013. Accor can only but support the GAC in this approach, insofar as it aims to avoid the establishing of monopolies and ultimately protect consumer interests. These safeguards are all the more important that certain applicants have chosen to apply for closed control of a generic term designating a particular industry while they are in fact already engaged in the conduct of business activities in that particular industry. The main risk is that the delegation of a generic term matching an economic sector to one single player will lead to a monopoly by excluding direct and indirect competitors. Some of these generic terms are critical for the conduct of an activity and should not be reserved for, or monopolized by, a single stakeholder in a business category. The hotel industry is largely dependent of the DNS (Domain Name System): 50% of travel bookings are made online and 45% of travelers are using online travel agency search capabilities. The generic term "hotel(s)" in English, Spanish or Portuguese cannot benefit and be operated by one single stakeholder, which moreover is a major online travel agency in the market. Indeed, such monopolies will necessarily end up harming the other actors of the market, including hotel operators since the Applicants will be in a position to discretionarily impose their conditions for the registration of domain names, referencing and reservation of hotel rooms, excluding de facto any other online booking service provider of their choice, from the hotel TLD. "Closed Generic" gTLD Applications have been identified as a major issue for the new gTLD program back in June 2012, when Applications were made public. Further to several communities' expressed concerns, the New gTLD Program Committee of the ICANN at its 2 February 2013 meeting directed the President and CEO to (i) open a 30-day public comment forum on this topic and (ii) request the GNSO to provide guidance on this issue. The Public Comment forum was held from 5 February 2013 to 7 March 2013 and generated over 260 comments. Neither the Report of Public Comments, nor the GNSO study have yet been published. Major stakeholders from all economic sectors have expressed concerns and published comments opposing to these "Closed Generic gTLD Applications", including but not limited to IKEA, Microsoft, Rakuten, the US Postal Service, USTelecom and many associations and representative bodies. Concerning more specifically the closed generic applications composed of the word "hotel(s)" either in English, Spanish or Portuguese, they were subject to several negative comments from many hotel operators, online travel agencies, representative bodies, associations and even Governments. They are currently subject to formal Community Objections before the ICC, by major representative bodies like HOTREC (the umbrella association of Hotels, Restaurants and Cafés in Europe) and HCPC (the Hotel Consumer Protection Coalition). Like Governments and the long list of opponents, Accor is convinced that allowing "Closed Generic" gTLD Applications will be a source of distortion of competition and consumer misleading. The Affirmation of Commitments defines the ICANN objectives which include promoting competition, consumer trust and consumer choice. Allowing "Closed Generic" gTLD Applications will produce the exact opposite effect. Accor urges the ICANN to implement the GAC Advice safeguards and to forbid any "Closed Generic" gTLD Application for a generic term. Nathalie Dreyfus Dreyfus & associés - Paris | Lyon | Strasbourg Conseils en Propriété Industrielle - Intellectual Property Attorneys 78 avenue Raymond Poincaré - 75116 Paris - France <<attachment: winmail.dat>> |