Our opposition to .CORP, .INC, .LLC, .LLP, and .LTD new Tld domain extensions
As a company that only deals with the maintenance and upkeep of LLCs, corporations, and other corporate entities such as a LLP or nonprofit, we feel the new domain name extensions of .corp, .inc, .llc, .llp, and .ltd will be a nightmare for the general public.
There are 53 jurisdictions in the US alone where one can incorporate a business such as AAA Plumbing Inc., Acme Construction Inc, or any corporate name.
Here are some fundamental problems with the verification and deception that will abound with website addresses like acmeconstruction.llc or acmeconstruction.corp
There are hundreds of different Acme Construction Incs and Acme Construction LLCs in the US.
Acme Construction Company, Inc of Modesto California was formed in California in 1956.
There are about 25 varieties of Acme Construction Companies name formed in Florida alone: http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResults/EntityName/acme%20construction/Page1 In particular this one, which is an exact match name formed in 2009: http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail/EntityName/domp-p09000019752-8e0d400c-325f-4058-8ddc-522b92f47cb5/acme%20construction/Page1
Concerns:
1) If Google does start ranking these new domain name endings, now all of a sudden someone searching in California for Acme Construction Company Inc of Modesto California all of a sudden has to wonder and find acmeconstructioncompany.inc from Florida??? And if the marketing plan the registry applicants of these extensions have comes to fruition, they will be trying to make you think that acmeconstructioncompany.inc will be a more validated company than acmeconstructioncompany.com that’s been in business since 1956… This company uses Acmeconstruction.com so in 5 years will that be looked at as the non-legit company using a .com ?? Will companies have to switch over to a different ending and ruin the work they’ve put into their old websites just to “look” legit?
2) From 2014 on, the letters to the right of the “.” in a domain name will have to start meaning something. I get that. But trying to put a valid corporate ending into it should be reserved to the letters left of the “dot”. Before this, you could understand that .com or .net was just a website address, not the actual company’s legal name. Lumping a legal name in with a domain name address will be devastating to the general public’s perception of companies and their corporate names. There’s no possible way to say ANYONE deserves the ending. Because even if someone formed a really crazy name like 7777 Ultimate Ventures to Mars LLC in Georgia, the same exact name could legally be formed 52 other times in 52 other US jurisdictions and it would be totally legal as long as each company stayed within their states borders. The world wide web has no borders. With new TLD endings like .LLC and .CORP your website instantly crosses state lines and instantly violates every entities common law trademark rights.
3) There are a lot of states like New Mexico where you don’t file annual or biennial reports. So someone naming a company like Specialized Curbing LLC will have that name locked up forever without ever filing anything with the State of New Mexico to keep it going. Are you telling me that now someone locks up a corporate legal entity in a state where the name will never go inactive, even if that company hasn’t been in business for decades and they have the rights to specializedcurbing.llc ??? so someone starts a business in New York called Specialized Curbing LLC or any of the other 52 jurisdictions where you could form the exact same name and runs under specializedcurbing.com all of a sudden is less legit and has to deal with the perception that they aren’t a legit business??
4) There is no way for a registry to gather enough information to limit the availability of an ending to the first company that formed that name in the US. There are 50+ state jurisdictions, sometimes 5+ state agencies that companies can be formed at within the state, but before there were Secretaries of States, the companies and their articles were formed at the county level and with acts of congress. So there’s no possible way to guarantee to US the GENERAL PUBLIC that you gave a .LLC, .CORP, .INC., OR .LLP to the first company in the US that registered it.
5) I’m only talking US, but there is an entire world out there where you can form entities as well. Every one of my concerns multiplies by an unmeasurable percent when factoring the entire world.
6) Right now, if I started a business called Specialty Concrete LLC in Spokane Washington in 1980 and it’s a well established business, I don’t really care if someone in Colorado starts Specialty Concrete LLC in 2014. Let’s say the .LLC registry gives specialtyconcrete.llc to the new Colorado company because it’s a legit company formed in Colorado, but all of a sudden my clients find specialtyconcrete.llc when searching for me online, I have no choice but to sue them for violating my trademark I worked 30 years to create. The release of these extensions crosses every state line that created what’s amazing about our country. The fact that we’re 50 individual states with a few extra jurisdictions with the ability to separate ourselves when needed, but come together as well. The ability to register a .LLC .corp .llp or .ltd wipes the lines away and we’ll all end up in court indefinitely and basically kills the entire idea of what America is.
7) I’m not against all these new endings. I think it will be cool and it will eliminate a lot of wasted letters in a URL like .com or .net. The most important thing to remember is that although this will look nuts to us today and for a few years… in 5 years a full URL will have to mean something. We’ll start looking at somethingsomething.com as an old website that’s not current. For most of the marketplace having a website at pizzadelivery.nyc will be better than nycpizzadelivery.com
I am against new tlds that will be overly confusing. There is no fundamental way to tell me that pizzacompany.llc is the only pizza company LLC in the US.
Let’s take Portland Maine and Portland Oregon; two cities about as far away as possible.
Portland Business Group, LLC on one side of the country: https://icrs.informe.org/nei-sos-icrs/ICRS?CorpSumm=20020559DC
And:
Portland Business Group, LLC on the other site of the country: http://egov.sos.state.or.us/br/pkg_web_name_srch_inq.show_detl?p_be_rsn=1397099&p_srce=BR_INQ&p_print=FALSE
So which one gets porlandbusinessgroup.llc ?? The first? What if the first doesn’t file their annual reports and goes inactive for a year or so… and the registry gives the domain to the other company, but then the older entity pays their annual reports and is back in good standing? What if the first one paid to register portlandbusinessgroup.llc for 10 years, but then didn’t file their annual report after one year, went out of business, but now the other Portlandbusinessgroup.com is stuck looking less legit because they don’t have the .llc??
But either way, why do we have to confuse the general public about the validity of one over the other?
No matter how you slice it, the .LLC .CORP .CORPORATION .INCORPORATED .INC .LLP .LTD .WHATEVER CORPORATE ENDING YOU WANT can never be given to the rightful owner because the same exact business name can be registered in 53 different US jurisdictions.