Re: [ALSC-Forum] Self-regulation and ICANN

[Daryl Tempesta]

I think we are right on topic.

By reducing scaricity, the rules that need to be
implimented are a lot less.

Which means we need to decide and debate less.


--- Vittorio Bertola <v.bertola@bertola.eu.org> wrote:
> 
> (First of all, it's not clear to me whether we are
> going off topic or not,
> so please someone tell me whether we should move
> this thread elsewhere or
> not.)
> 
> On Tue, 17 Jul 2001 12:59:56 -0400, you wrote:
> 
> >]> You're right, there is no scarcity of potential
> domain names.....you can
> >]> always add new TLDs, or in extremis put a 1 in
> front of every
> >]> word (as they
> >]> do with phone numbers).etc.
> >]>
> >
> >Limiting the number of TLDs is an artificial means
> of imposing scarcity,
> 
> On the other hand, I also register domains for the
> company I work for. And,
> believe me, it's really frustrating to go and have
> to register your
> company's trademarks in all new gTLDs (at least the
> non-chartered ones...
> i.e. .biz or .info). For my company, it is basically
> a big waste of time and
> money, because you have to go to all these different
> registries (which in
> turn are kept free to invent nice systems such as
> the "IP Claim" or the
> "domain lottery" to push you to give them as much
> money as they can get) not
> because you are ever going to use yourcompany.biz,
> but simply to protect
> your name from possible cybersquattings and unfair
> competition. 
> 
> I mean, this makes it evident that new unchartered
> gTLDs are completely
> useless, unless for the fact that they transfer a
> big amount of money from
> the users (be them individuals, non profit or profit
> entities) to ICANN, the
> registrars and the registries. And it makes a good
> point in favor of those
> that think that ICANN only represents the domain
> registration businesses
> interests.
> 
> Personally, I think that no more unchartered gTLDs
> should be introduced, as
> they would not add diversity at all, and would just
> be a huge theft of money
> from the end users.
> 
> >So we CAN have Delta faucets, airlines, and (if you
> want to enter a new
> >market) -- mouthwash or aftershave.  And we can
> have a multitude of LOCAL
> >"Delta" brands of restaurants, garages, automobile
> dealerships,
> >hairstylists, bookstores and other things.  But if
> you try to sell Kodak
> >mouthwash or aftershave, however (even locally),
> you are diluting the
> >trademark.  And it seems that every trademark owner
> in the world views its
> >trademark as a "famous" one entitled to a dilution
> remedy even if the mark
> >CLEARLY is not "famous and distinctive" (whatever
> THAT means).
> 
> It is not a matter of dilution. If you are
> introducing a worldwide TLD, it
> does not matter that your company only works in your
> city - you simply don't
> want a part of your customers, even if tiny, not to
> find your site because
> they guess and write .biz or .net or your local
> ccTLD rather than .com. And
> domains are cheap enough so that any company, even
> small, won't bother
> paying ten or twenty registrations to protect their
> name, even if it will
> blame those who built a system that forces it to do
> so. And by the way, I
> (being involved in the policy board for the .it
> domains) noticed a sharp
> increase in the kind of disputes such as "I own the
> .com and this guy owns
> the .it, I want it too".
> 
> Speaking as an individual or as an ICANN involved
> person, I might not like
> this attitude, but unfortunately any business in the
> world will think and
> act this way.
> 
> >I doubt that in the heads of rougly 6 billion
> people in the world there's
> >any "scarcity" -- or at least any "scaricity" that
> matters for any practical
> >purpose -- of ability to recognize and remember
> different trade symbols used
> >in a multitude of different cultures.
> 
> But they usually remember the name. They don't
> necessarily remember which
> two or three letter code follows the dot. They
> usually don't. My company
> uses <companyname>.it for the Italian site and
> <companyname>.com for the US
> one, but even if we're a very famous company in
> Italy, we've had TV ads with
> the .it URL, and so on... we still have an amazing
> number of Italians
> browsing the .com site in English and writing to our
> US team "why in the
> hell you don't have a site in Italian?".
> 
> >Some helpful writing on the subject can be found
> here:
> >
> >http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Ford_v_GreatDomains/
> >
> >as well as on the 2600 Website, in the PDF copies
> of the papers filed in the
> >dispute between 2600 and Ford about
> Fuckgeneralmotors.com.
> 
> Of course I'm not talking about *this* kind of
> dispute. I absolutely agree
> that TMs should not deserve a better treatment, at
> least not to the extent
> of menacing freedom of speech, and that there should
> be TLDs with a charter
> that prevents any trademark enforcement, so that
> coca-cola.free can go to
> whoever gets it without any menace from the TM
> owner.
> -- 
> .oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo vb.
> Vittorio Bertola     <vb@vitaminic.net>    Ph. +39
> 011 23381220
> Vitaminic [The Music Evolution] - Vice President for
> Technology
> .it Naming Authority, Executive Committee Member
> ICANN At Large Interim Coordinating Committee,
Member


=====
Daryl Tempesta
HotDot.com
288 Civic Center Dr
Scotts Valley, 95066
831-239-9656 (c)
831-439-9239 (h)

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