As new top-level domains continue to enter the marketplace, one of the most controversial has been dot-sucks. The new top-level domain has generated criticism for its business model as much as for the websites that are likely to use it, with the intellectual property community describing the model behind dot-sucks as “illicit” and “predatory, exploitive, and coercive”. That recently led to a complaint to ICANN, which took the unusual step of writing to the U.S. and Canadian governments to determine whether the company behind dot-sucks was violating any national laws, claiming it “was very concerned about any possible illegality.”
The decision to include the Canadian government in the letter stems from the fact that dot-sucks is owned by a subsidiary of Momentous Corp., an Ottawa-based company. This week, the Canadian government responded to the ICANN letter, making it clear that it has absolutely no intention of intervening in the case. The key paragraph in the letter signed by Industry Canada Deputy Minister John Knobley:
