LFG seeks legal relief and asks ICANN to clarify whether the easyGroup conglomerate broke new TLD rules.
EasyGroup, the company behind the well-known easyJet brand and a portfolio of other “easy” trademarks, has taken a confrontational stance toward competing applicants for the .easy top-level domain (TLD). After issuing a legal demand to another applicant, Link Freedom Group (LFG) has responded by taking the dispute to federal court and formally asking ICANN to weigh in on whether EasyGroup’s actions violated the organization’s applicant rules.
The dispute began after EasyGroup announced its application for the .easy TLD earlier this year. Shortly afterward, EasyGroup sent a cease-and-desist-style letter to LFG, which had also submitted an application for .easy. In that letter, EasyGroup warned that registrations under the .easy TLD could infringe its trademark rights and demanded that LFG withdraw its application within a short timeframe.
Rather than acquiesce, LFG filed a lawsuit against EasyGroup in federal court. The complaint seeks a declaratory judgment that any dispute over the .easy string should be resolved through ICANN’s prescribed mechanisms, specifically the dispute resolution procedures set out in the Applicant Guidebook. Alternatively, LFG asks the court to declare that its planned .easy TLD application would not infringe on EasyGroup’s trademarks. As a further option, the complaint presses a claim of tortious interference based on EasyGroup’s communications with competing applicants.
In addition to the federal court filing, LFG submitted a formal letter to ICANN on September 10 asking the organization to disqualify EasyGroup’s application for .easy. In that correspondence, LFG argued that EasyGroup’s outreach to competing applicants amounted to a prohibited communication intended to induce withdrawal of a competing application. LFG pointed out that Module 4 of the ICANN Applicant Guidebook specifically provides the Legal Rights Objection (LRO) process for evaluating whether a proposed TLD string improperly relies on a claimed trademark. Because the guidebook establishes an orderly, objective process for resolving these disputes, LFG contends there is no legitimate reason for a competing applicant to attempt to bypass that process by pressuring rivals directly.
LFG’s letter asks ICANN to clarify whether EasyGroup’s conduct violated the guidebook’s rules that limit communications between applicants in the same contention set. The contention set here is straightforward: multiple parties are competing for the same top-level domain, .easy, and ICANN’s procedures are meant to govern how such conflicts are resolved to ensure fairness and transparency.
Our concern that easyGroup has engaged in a prohibited communication designed to induce withdrawal of a competing application is reinforced by the fact that the ICANN Applicant Guidebook provides an explicit mechanism for evaluating precisely the sort of intellectual property claim which easyGroup is asserting in its correspondence to LFG. Specifically, Module 4 of the AGB provides the Legal Rights Objection (LRO) process for evaluation of whether a TLD string is unfairly premised on a claimed trademark. Given the existence of an orderly process for objective evaluation of these claims, LFG believes there is no justifiable reason for a competing TLD applicant to attempt to route around the process ICANN has prescribed to address such situations.
How ICANN responds could shape the behavior of applicants in future rounds of new gTLDs. If ICANN rules that EasyGroup’s letter crossed a line, it could deter similar direct outreach aimed at forcing withdrawals and encourage more disputes to be funneled through formal objection processes like the LRO or other contention resolution mechanisms. Conversely, if ICANN declines to take a definitive stance or rules that such communications are permissible, applicants may feel freer to negotiate or apply pressure on rivals prior to the established ICANN procedures taking effect—potentially undermining the neutrality those procedures are intended to preserve.
There is also practical significance to the timing. Applicants often explore private settlements or withdrawals ahead of ICANN’s “Reveal Day” and accompanying contention-resolution steps. Clarification from ICANN on whether such pre-Reveal Day communications are allowed would reduce the current uncertainty and help ensure that applicants know the boundaries of acceptable conduct.
At the time of LFG’s submission, ICANN had not published LFG’s letter on its public correspondence page, though it has posted other third-party letters on various applied-for strings. That omission leaves observers waiting to see whether ICANN will issue a timely clarification about communications in contention sets or defer the question until a specific objection or enforcement action forces a decision.
In the short term, the matter now proceeds on two tracks: LFG’s federal court complaint challenging EasyGroup’s demands and LFG’s request that ICANN investigate whether EasyGroup’s outreach violated the Applicant Guidebook. Either outcome could influence how trademark holders and TLD applicants interact in future gTLD application cycles.