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

[Bruce Young]

Ester Wrote:

>But there *is* a scarcity of space in people's heads, which is why
>trademarks are not *artificially* scarce, but in fact reflect the scarcity
>of attention. And because domain names get some of their value by
>association with trademarks, there *is* a scarcity (inversely related to
>value)  vis a vis domain names that matters.

This is bordering on off-topic, so we may incur Denise's wrath, but . . .

I question the wisdom of allowing trademark protection outside of .COM and
.BIZ, since doing so gives us no benefit: for example, if Coca-Cola is
allowed first dibs on "coke.<anything>", then what's the point of open new
TLDs?  We gain no new useable names if 90% of each TLD is allowed to be
grabbed up by corporate interests to protect their trademarks.  Outside of
.COM and .BIZ, which are clearly set asside for commercial business use, all
names should be first come, first served.

I also think that automatically deferring to the WIPO to decide who keeps
disputed names has not worked very well: just because one business has
registered a trade name should not give them the right to steal the domain
name of a small business that had the foresight to register the name first.
Laws already exist in most countries to squash cybersquatters, and should be
used as a model by ICANN to set up its own independant arbitration process.
Good-faith domain name owners not infringing on another company's trademarks
should be allowed to keep their domain.

Bruce Young
Portland, Oregon
byoung651@home.com
http://members.home.net/byoung651/index.html