Amazon.com, HP, Ford among those lobbying Washington about domain names
by Andrew Allemann — July 30, 2013 Policy & Law 0 Comments
Big companies join domain heavyweights in lobbying U.S. government about domain name issues.
It's been a couple years since I've done a round up of how much domain name companies are spending on lobbying in Washington.
I just ran an updated analysis and made two key observations.
First, major domain name companies including VeriSign and Go Daddy are spending less on lobbying than they used to.
Second, a lot of non-domain name companies are lobbying about domain names, mostly due to new top level domain names.
The chart (top right) shows how much six domain name companies and lobbying groups spent on lobbying activities in Washington for the first half of the year. This is based on filings under the Lobbying Disclosure Act as of today.
Verisign's spending has steadily declined since 2008, and it spent just $270,000 during the first half of this year. Last year, when it was working on its .com contract renewal, the company spent $675,000 on lobbying efforts.
Compare that to 2006, when the company spent about $7 million on lobbying.
Also, compare the results of its 2006 registry agreement to its 2012 one…
GoDaddy spent just $204,000 during the first half of the year, and all of that was in-house. Last year the company spent about $750,000, and in 2011 it spent over $1 million. The most recent drop seems to be timed with General Counsel Cristine Jones' departure from the company.
The Association for National Advertisers lobbied everyone from the House of Representatives, Senate, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Commerce (DOC) and National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) about new top level domains as it tried to slow down or stop their rollout.
The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), a trade group representing trademark interests for domain names, spent $100,000. If it continues that pace in the second half of the year it will be in line with the previous two years.
Internet Commerce Association (ICA), a trade group representing domain name investors, did not file any lobbying disclosures.
Non-domain Companies
A handful of large companies that aren't (at least yet) in the domain name business spent money lobbying about domain names this year. Most of it was related to new top level domains.
Amazon.com is one of the big names that stands out. The company is an applicant for 76 new top level domain applications. But its flagship application for the brand .amazon is in doubt thanks to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). I suspect some of the lobbying had to do with the NTIA.
HP, which couldn't apply for .hp because of restrictions on two letter top level domains, also lobbied about domain names.
Two car companies, Ford and Chrysler, reported lobbying activities regarding top level domains. Add Procter & Gamble, National Retail Federation and Software & Information Industry Association (backed by a who's who of software companies) to the list.
0 Comments Tags: amazon, ford, GoDaddy, hp, lobbying, VeriSign
VeriSign and Go Daddy Increase Government Lobbying
by Andrew Allemann — May 25, 2011 Policy & Law 0 Comments
Two domain name industry heavyweights spend more on government lobbying in 2010.
Both VeriSign and Go Daddy substantially increased their spending on U.S. government lobbying over the past year, data collected by Domain Name Wire show.
The numbers are based on public records filed with the U.S. Senate under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
VeriSign spent $3.315 million on lobbying last year, up from $2.4 million in 2009. Go Daddy Group, which owns domain name registrar GoDaddy.com, spent $1.162 million in 2010. That's up from $715,500 in 2009. Among the issues Go Daddy lobbied were piracy, privacy, and rogue internet pharmacies. Go Daddy has been a strong advocate of shutting down these pharmacies and suspended 150,000 domains related to rogue online pharmacies last year.
Most other domain name related companies either held lobbying expenditures steady or decreased them, as the chart in this post shows.
Non-domain companies also spent money lobbying the federal government about domain names. For example, Christian Coalition of America was at it again, lobbying the government to stop the .xxx domain name. (ICM Registry, which operates .xxx, just registered to start lobbying the government this year).
0 Comments Tags: GoDaddy, lobbying, VeriSign
Who Will Throw Domain Investors Under the Bus?
by Andrew Allemann — April 28, 2010 Policy & Law 10 Comments
When will Washington decide to screw domain investors?
When the U.S. health care bill passed, one of the provisions that got some attention is a tax on indoor tanning salons. The 10% tax goes into effect in July.
When I saw this provision, I realized right away why this particular provision was added. Sure, it raises some money (defrays the cost of the health care bill). And it is somewhat related to health, since tanning can have some negative health consequences. But the first thing that popped into my mind was how the tanning salon business got picked on because it's not big enough to put up a good defense.
Just about everyone else in the health care debate threw millions of dollars at shaping the policy. But the Indoor Tanning Association couldn't keep up with that. It reminds me of the domain name industry, which can't beat the big pockets of sometimes competing interests.
Last night I read an article in Forbes (Pole Dancing and Other Sins, May 10) that shows how another medical interest threw the tanning salons under the bus:
Dermatologists, arguing that heavy use of indoor tanning has been linked to a higher risk of deadly skin cancer, convinced the Senate that revenues from the tanning tax should replace a tax on cosmetic surgery (the so-called Bo-Tax) adopted by the House. "We were rolled by the doctors," laments John Overstreet, executive director of the Indoor Tanning Association.
That's how Washington works.
The domain industry doesn't have a lot of money, but fortunately it still has a presence in Washington. We should support that.
10 Comments Tags: Internet Commerce Association, lobbying
Domain Name Companies Spend $2M Lobbying Washington
by Andrew Allemann — August 5, 2009 Uncategorized 6 Comments
Analysis shows over $2M spent in first half of year on lobbying.
Domain name related companies continue to spend millions of dollars lobbying representatives in Washington, a study by Domain Name Wire shows. The analysis used public records filed with the U.S. Senate to calculate lobbying expenses by domain name companies and other companies regarding domain name issues.
By far the biggest spender is VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN), which spent $1.4M in the first half of 2009 on "Domain Name Addressing, Data legislation, Authentication Internet Content Legislation, Internet taxation, Internet e-mail legislation, e-commerce, pfishing legislation (sic)". However, this number is down from last year when the company spent nearly $3.8M for the full year.
The next biggest lobbying force on Capitol Hill is GoDaddy, which spent $344,000 during the first half of the year. GoDaddy is trying to influence a number of issues, ranging from new gTLDs, the ICANN Joint Project Agreement, targeted online advertising, trademarks and copyrights, patent reform, and whois database privacy.
GoDaddy also formed a lobbying organization called "Internet Domain Name Registrars Coalition" along with Network Solutions and Oversee.net (Moniker) this year. (Update: Oversee.net is no longer a member of this group.)
With a number of big spenders trying to influence internet governance policy, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is also involved. The non-profit spent $120,000 so far this year for "Internet governance issues including new gTLDs, consumer protection and domain name competition, security and spam, independence from UN/ITU/government capture, post-JPA cooperation with USG, cybersecurity and accountability/transparency. Policies regarding the oversight of Internet's naming and numbering systems. S.773, Cybersecurity Act of 2009."
Register.com spent $50,000 to influence "Legislation to authorize the Small Business Administration to assist unemployed individiauls start on-line businesses". Demand Media spent $60,000 while its eNom division spent $40,000 to lobby about new generic top level domains. Neustar, registry for .biz and .us, chipped in $100,000 for FCC nominations and ICANN issues, while Network Solutions spent $20,000.
Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) and Internet Commerce Association (ICA) continue to invest in Washington. CADNA spent $60,000 to tackle issues related to cybersquatting and ICANN. Some of CADNA's members also do their own domain name lobbying, including Intercontinental Hotels Group. ICA pulled back this year, spending less than $5,000 each quarter on lobbying.
Other organizations also spent part of their lobbying budget on domain name issues, including HP and United States Chamber of Commerce.
6 Comments Tags: CADNA, GoDaddy, Internet Commerce Association, lobbying, VeriSign