The IAF/ILAC merger into a single entity — something no one asked for — continues its jerky trip down the rocky road of comedic chaos with yet another rebrand.
First, the new entity’s legal name is “Global Accreditation Cooperation, Inc.,” which is quite a mouthful. They then registered the longest URL known to man: www.globalaccreditationcooperationincorporated.org. I’m not kidding.
To make it a bit more catchy, the IAF geniuses then chose the nickname “GLOBAC,” and began branding everything under that name. See here, here, and here, for starters. The problem, of course, is that they never hired a lawyer to do trademark searches, and ran into problems with other companies that already had the name. Then, they never secured the website domain, so some Turkish scammers launched a fake lab accreditation site using www.globac.net, leaving the IAF humiliated.
So, it was back to the drawing board, except when tasked with coming up with something meaningful, the IAF gang ate the crayons instead. for the second rebrand, they adopted the name “GACI,” never realizing that when you say it out loud, it sounds just like the name of American serial killer and clown aficionado John Wayne Gacey. That prompted me to post memes about “John Wayne GACI,” and IAF was humiliated once again.
So it was back to the crayon pit yet again. Now, they’ve launched a third rebrand, and this time even have a logo. The new name is “Global ACI.” Did they get it right this time?
Of course not. We are talking about people who need to wear a life preserver every time they sip a glass of water. Once again — for a third time! — they didn’t do any checks beforehand. And, sure enough, the name Global ACI already belongs to a number of companies, one of them being a Canadian laminates distributor. Imagine that the company gets ISO 9001 certified and its certificate has its own name on it!
The term “Global ACI” is also used by the Airports Council International and ICAO for airport safety training programs, and refers to Cisco’s “global application centric infrastructure.”
Alright, sure, a few of those are pedantic. But it would not have taken much work for the crayon-eaters and window-lickers at IAF to come up with something original.
It does seem like this last one will stick, at least until Global ACI gets sued. But that’s the least of their problems. It appears the gang is on track to violate New Zealand laws within its first year of operation, as it obtained a special tax-exempt status based on patently false and fraudulent statements. But that’s a story for another day.
At least the name “Global” suggests the IAF gang realizes the earth isn’t flat. That’s actually impressive.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
