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The Internet Your Rights Online

New TLDs Loaded with Fraudulent Registrations 172

Posted by michael from the mmmm,-capitalism dept.
Dan Tobias and others wrote in about the disaster unfolding during the new registrations of .biz and .info domains. Both TLD's are - by mandate of ICANN - employing sunrise registrations where trademark holders can pre-register or reserve domain names that coincide with their trademarks. However, neither registry plans to check the validity of the asserted trademarks. Guess what? Most of the reservations in .info thus far appear to involve fictional trademark claims on highly generic words - I checked ten common words for trademark validity and was able to verify two and confirm that seven were completely invalid (.biz is doing things slightly differently, and will probably have fewer problems). The challenge process costs $300, so it's doubtful that most bogus registrations of non-trademarks will ever be challenged - register yours today, or just amuse yourself by checking common names. As usual, I should point out that if the root were run properly, allowing any TLD to be added, this squabbling over an artificially-limited resource would be eliminated.
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New TLDs Loaded with Fraudulent Registrations More

New TLDs Loaded with Fraudulent Registrations

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  • Is sex.biz available? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward


    Or BenDover.info?

  • Wha? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sarcasmooo! ( 267601 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:35PM (#2110187)
    No mention of Dupont grabbing Science.info [afilias.info]?
  • Suppose I want a website. I'm not a .com business! I'm not a .org organization. I'm just some dumb shmoe who wants a website. Also it seems natural to want to call it myname.com. But some business might already have myname locked up. But it's MY NAME!! Why can't I use it?
    • Ever hear of country coded Top Level Domains (ccTLD)? Lots of 'em are open to the whole world; anyone can get one. Okay, some--like .se and .fi--are restricted, and some--like .uk and .au--require you to get a third-level domain (example.co.uk or example.net.au). Some others--Myanmar's .mm being the only one I know about--will charge you extra if you don't have an address in their country. But they are out there and there are DOZENS of 'em. Some--such as the USSR's .su and East Germany's .dd--are no longer being issued. But there are still plenty left.

      If you want a complete listing of ccTLDs, check the following url: http://www.norid.no/domreg.html [norid.no] Okay, so yourbusinessname.am or yourpersonalsite.tv isn't as "sexy" as .com or .net. Who cares? It'll get your people there, and that's all that matters.
  • Everything is being hopelessly mismanaged here. We know a town has gone to pure hell when Joe-Blow's-Fast-Food-Joint-with-Mouse-Shit-In-The- French-Fries puts up a copy of the golden arches just to attract more business..

    So much for the Internet.. Remember the good ole days when web addresses were http://www.server3.umystate.edu/~dude/web/computer .html

    Maybe we should just forget ICANN, and start our own .root..

    • So much for the Internet.. Remember the good ole days when web addresses were http://www.server3.umystate.edu/~dude/web/computer .html

      Maybe we should just forget ICANN, and start our own .root..

      If you want to go back to those days, what's the need for a new .root? Just have one person register one domain name (www.generic-domain.com or something) and then give everyone ~directories under it.
    • Beat you to it. Check out the OpenNIC [unrated.net].

  • slashdot.info is still available. Who will be the first to register it?

  • I work for a registrar. Today during a meeting, we got sidetracked by all the bogus "trademarked" domains that've been submitted. Someone has a trade mark for 'sex', 'New Orleans', and 'beer'. . .

    Hee hee heeee.... Guess I could lie about my trademark to 'god', 'root', and 'mis' :)

  • Online reporting trends. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Matt2000 ( 29624 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:43PM (#2117456) Homepage

    I notice more and more, especially on Slashdot, disgust and "I told you so" type attitudes when it comes to issues involving the interface between new world internet issues and old world rights such as copyright. The general feeling is that there is an equitable and efficient solution, the right solution, and because there are complications with one solution or another, the people who are instituting it are idiots or worse.

    I know this feeling, it comes from programming too much.

    When computers interfaces with our regular lives, things get messy. There is no efficient online check for copyright validity, so do we not do new registrations? No, we just go ahead and do it as best as can be done. It may take years to sort out the claims, and not every case will be fair to both parties, but such is the way with the law. Articles such as this continue to complain about situations with the feeling that there must be a better way, but meanwhile people are out there making mistakes and finding that better way.

    Do I agree with the way ICANN runs things? Nope. However, I also don't agree with sideline punditry, which has reached epidemic proportions amongst the editorial crew of Slashdot.
    • But there is a way to check trademark registration, at least for the U.S. claims. http://tess.uspto.gov/ has a searchable database of trademark registrations. Just search for the registration number and see if it's really for the item in question and held by the trademark holder. It's not perfect, but it will keep people from claiming they've got US trademark #00000000 on "movie."
      • Of course, that only applies to registered trademarks. That is, ®. There's lots of perfectly valid unregistered trademarks -- TM.

        More importantly, someone *could* actually trademark "movie" -- it wouldn't be a good trademark for motion pictures since it's already a generic term in that since, but might be a perfectly legitimate trademark for cosmetics [uspto.gov]. In fact, it is. :)
    • However, I also don't agree with sideline punditry, which has reached epidemic proportions amongst the editorial crew of Slashdot.

      Hey, guess what? Slashdot is and always has been an exercise in sideline punditry. That's what it's for.

      That said:

      1. Copyright has nothing to do with it. The issues relate to trademarks.

      2. The people "out there" aren't finding a better way. They're not interested in that. They're trying to find a way that makes big-money corporate interests happy. That the proposed "solutions" are failing at that is sort of amusing.
    • Who says there's no solution? Here's one for you: all corporations should be assigned a single TLD, let's say .evilcorp, the way .gov is assigned for the government. Do you see the US govt suing the owner of whitehouse.com for trademark infringement? No, you don't. Same thing should be good enough for corps. Give them their own playground, and tell them to back the hell off from anything else. Let them fight among themselves over trademarks in their own namespace, and let me and you register pepsi.info and madonalds.whatever to our heart's content; they have enough marketing $$$ to establish "TLD-awareness" among consumer masses so people won't confuse their corporate website with my "evilcorp sucks" page.

      Does this come from programming too much? No, but if the feeling is familiar to you, maybe you should lay off programming for a while.
    • I do not have a viable, equitable solution to the new world views of old world rights, and I doubt that many people do. However, I personally do not think that corps should be allowed to run rampant. And niether should the basest element rule.

      I think that the statement that 'When computers interfaces with our regular lives, things get messy' is not only grammatically incorrect, it is also misleading. The truth is that the 'real life' things like 'copyright' and 'intellectual property' are most often either being applied to situations that are outside of the original scope of the concept, or are corporate spins to try and reap the benefits of that which they have no inherent right to reap. It is not that computers are interfacing, it is that conventional laws and ideas are being applied, and adapted as an afterthought, to the internet. That is what is messy.

      For example, what is the difference between a library buying a book and lending it out, and a website getting a document and lending it out? When what one sells can be copied, and become every bit as viable as the original, what becomes of 'property'? Does thinking of something give exclusive rights to it, and everything associated with it? What things should be considered ridiculous when 'intellectual property' rights are claimed? What rights should be policed by governing agencies, and what rights should be enforced by challange? These issues are very real, and some have as real an impact on (some of) our lives as any thing from our 'regular lives'.

      Conventional ways of dealing with these issues are no longer applicable, and new ways need to be found /thought about. Sure, this at times seems like a great big ineffective bitch fest, but if the ideas are never thought about nothing will ever change. The electronic world will default to either the most profitable (for the corps, not the consumers, and thus be unfair), or, if there is no profit to be made, the option that takes the least effort. Personally, I think that there is far more potential in the internet's (and technology's) future than that.

      -CrackElf

  • "Fraudulent" TLDs? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:33PM (#2117587) Homepage


    ...How is it fraudulent, if you bought it?

    You can register mcdonalds.com and list Harry Balzac [system26.com] as your contact person as far as I'm concerned.. If you're the first in line to grab the domain, it should be yours. Thats what the whole appeals process is for. Suppose your company is McDonald's Heating & Air Conditioning, and you got your name on the dotted line before The Evil Clown did.. Too bad for Clownburger, the domain is yours, and if they still have a problem with it, there are plenty of avenues of recourse.

    This whole post is pretty much pointless. There is no such thing as a "bogus registration".

    • One of the problems I have is with these "so called" claims by companies like 'Clownburger' - what if they choose to fight a tiny company out of business?

      Claims of legal recourse allow more for Lawyers fees than they do valid equal recourse (for both the weak as well as the strong).

    • What's "fraudulent" is that people and companies are claiming to own trademarks on words that they do not in fact own trademarks on.
    • This is quite simple - apparently they are "requiring" at the very least a trademark of the name on the domain. In your case "McDonald's Heating & Air" could take that domain, but only if they trademarked the quoted name. I have no right to it, but from what I see here, I would simply have to claim that I own a trademark, or represent someone who owns a trademark (which doesn't exist) and I could fradulently acquire a very high priced domain. But who's to say that it is right or wrong? The company registering the domains. They paid for the right to sell the domains, so they should be held accountable for all violations of the rules regarding them. If it is $300 to challenge a domain, you should get it all back if you are correct. That fee should only be used to deter bogus claims - not deter legitimate claims. But welcome to the internet - your stinking laws don't apply here...
    • It's fraudulent because not just anybody can beat people to the punch and register the one they want. As the story says, the 'sunrise' period is for Trademark holders only. The problem is that trademark holders are having a field day registering whatever the hell they want, based on what is likely to get a lot of hits, and not on what their trademarks are. So people like you and me are going to sit and wait, while people at Dupont register science.info, etc.
  • A managed naming heirarchy.

    http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/dns/

  • Bzzzt! Sorry... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lazarus Short ( 248042 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:33PM (#2122795) Homepage
    Michael posted:
    As usual, I should point out that if the root were run properly, allowing any TLD to be added, this squabbling over an artificially-limited resource would be eliminated.
    Not at all. All this would do would be to
    1. Move the squabbling up a notch. Instead of fighting over "business.com" and "computer.com", people will start fighting over ".computer" and ".business".
    2. Increase the strain on the root servers. The entire DNS system is centralized around root servers and TLD servers. The ".com" TLD servers are pretty heavily stressed as it is. Add in all the traffic from ".net", ".edu", ".org", and all the country codes, and dump that level of load on the root servers, and you have the situation that would develop if any TLD was legal.
    • 1. I just posted elsewhere [slashdot.org] on this.... basically, as michael says, any TLD could be *added*, but that doesn't mean any one group could *have* that TLD. (Anyone could create second-level domains within any TLD.)

      2. On the contrary -- it would spread the load more evenly. Each TLD would get its own set of servers. It's a hierarchical system and this is exactly the kind of scaling that would be no problem.

    • Re:Bzzzt! Sorry... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Blitherakt! ( 199326 )
      I totally understand and agree with this, however I can't help but want to brainstorm some ideas around this.

      Couldn't we add a boatload of root servers? This approach will open up another can of worms; namely synchronization of roots. With all the advances and brains going into P2P lately, couldn't a decent replication scheme be put into effect to minimize this?

      Imagine, if you will, a root server with an "update" server handling all of the replication transactions. Bandwidth would go up, but the root server itself would be able to devote its processor to dealing with DNS lookups.

      Maybe I'm just blowing smoke, but I'd love to find a way to dodge the ICANN bullet.

      • Re:Bzzzt! Sorry... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Ben Hutchings ( 4651 )
        Couldn't we add a boatload of root servers?

        No. The DNS protocol imposes a limit of 255 bytes on the list of root server names and addresses, which seems to mean that there can only be 13 of them.

      • We can use P2P concepts for DNS as well as solve a lot of these other problems. My favorite alternative is DNS-over-freenet [sourceforge.net]. This solution turns domainnames into a first-come, first-served free system, where unused domains are gradually removed from the system. That may not be what a lot of people want, but I think it sounds very fair. (i.e., you can cybersquat if you want, but your site had better be popular or you will lose the domain name.)

    • Re:Bzzzt! Sorry... (Score:3, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      Move the squabbling up a notch. Instead of fighting over "business.com" and "computer.com", people will start fighting over ".computer" and ".business".

      Actually, I'd thought of this problem. The writer is on the right track but needs to add one more thing.

      I think that any well formed TLD should be accepted but belong to no one. For one thing, without this provision, we are just moving the cybersquatting problem from .com to the TLDs.

      Under this scheme, Microsoft would be able to register "support.microsoft". I as somebody who is not connected with Microsoft at all would also register under the "microsoft" TLD, subject to legal restrictions about trademark confusion. Thus, I could register "i-hate.microsoft", or "monopoly-watch.microsoft" since nobody would think that these are official sites of the Microsoft corporation. However if I registered "seattle.microsoft" or "newyork.microsoft", then this could be confused by consumers as regional offices of Microsoft and I could be sued.

      The trademark issue would remain under fairly generic TLDs like ".computer" (e.g. "friendly.computers" would be OK for anyone, but "ibm.computers" would likely arouse the ire of lawyers in Armonk).

      Unlimited, unownable TLDs would greatly reduce cybersquatting. Suppose there are 2000 economically valuable common English words that could be used in a domain name. Given three TLDs (.com, .org, .net), there are 6000 economically valuable domains based on English words. If domains cost, say, $20/yr, a person or organization could own 10% of the valuable domains for a mere $12,000. This would be worth a private person to attempt, on the high liklihood that a "business.com" scenario would be hidden there. With ownable, unlimited TLDs, the situation is worsened: the cost would be only $4,000/yr to own 10% of the valuable domains. If TLDs are unlimited and unownable, then the set of valuable domains would be the product of the the valuable TLD words and valuable second level domain wordes -- in other words 4 million. To own 10% of the valuable domains you would have to purchase 400,000 domains; again using our theoretical price of $20/yr, this would amount to 8 million dollars -- beyond the reach of most people and impractical for most companies.

      I actually think that the minimum anual cost for a domain should be higher -- say $100. This would discourage attempting to stake out most of the territory under a particular TLD, such as ".computers".

      Increase the strain on the root servers. The entire DNS system is centralized around root servers and TLD servers. The ".com" TLD servers are pretty heavily stressed as it is. Add in all the traffic from ".net", ".edu", ".org", and all the country codes, and dump that level of load on the root servers, and you have the situation that would develop if any TLD was legal.

      I'd be willing to bet that better than 90% of the DNS traffic is in requests for ".com" domains. Thus running unlimited TLDs wouldn't be that much harder than running the ".com" registry alone. There are also tricks that could be used to partition the load. For example, packets coming into the root servers would be highly redudant. A router could be programmed to mask enough of the packet to forward all the domain requests for the starting with the letter "M" to a particular network, to be handled by the "M" server.

  • biz (Score:2, Funny)

    by 3prong ( 241218 )
    Worst. TLD. Ever.

  • What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ryanwright ( 450832 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:35PM (#2123168)
    When companies shell out hard cash (business.com sold for $3.2 million) for a domain someone else got for $30, what do you expect? With this knowledge, if you could get your hands on business.biz for $30, wouldn't you bite? I sure as hell would. Someone will pay at least a few hundred grand for it...
    • i agree with you completely, but to me it seems that happened more in the past when cybersquating was almost a sport. now it seems everyone is just dragged into court to get their "rightfull" domain back. still, for $30, it's sure worth a try...

      scott
    • I think the main point was the the .biz and .info were supposed (supposed) to be to only registered trademark owners to avoid cybersquatting. IE: if I owned the trademark to widget Inc I could register widget.biz without the worry of having to pay $3m for it in a few months.
  • These new TLDs (.biz and .info) are just to milk companies for more money.

    As it stands now, if a company registers abcdefg.com they also register abcdefg.org and acdefg.net, just so no-one else can create a similarly-named site. So now, the same people/company will have to spend additional money on registering .biz and .info.

    Since many/most companies will do this, you're not really solving the "Internet domain address" problem in which all the good names are already taken. This will still be the case--just that now we'll have to register in 5 TLDs rather than the 3 that are commonly registered now.

    Conclusion: This benefits the Registrars, just about no-one else.

  • then the DNS architecture would turn out flat. Maybe this is a difficult concept for you but the DNS was designed to be a heirarchical naming system.

  • This is a serious problem (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Some registers such as directnic.com and others are allowing a lot of domains to go through the .info etc. While checking a coworker managed to snag god.info, allah.info and a ton of others (muslim/hindu etc) Though you have to register for five years. One of the reason that these guys are allowing the fradulent registrations is that info.info gets a certain percentage of the charges for the dispute, so they stand to make a huge amount of money from the fraudulent ones. I saw some that had copyright information dated 0097 all the way to 2048. This should be interesting to watch.

  • It's working.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by LordOfYourPants ( 145342 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:28PM (#2143403)
    I'm registering slashdot.biz and info as we speak.
    • Michael makes an interesting observation:
      As usual, I should point out that if the root were run properly, allowing any TLD to be added, this squabbling over an artificially-limited resource would be eliminated.
      Consider for a moment the implications of allowing any TLD to be established... It at first glance would cause a resource which has been artificially limited, to be freed up, however, it would cause the real limit to be reached far more quickly than would otherwise occur, in that, last names would be common as TLDs, and probably a whole set of business types, and so fourth, but allowing such a system would not truly cause the domain name resource pool to be less limited, it would simply alter the nature of domain names, removing the three letter TLD and replacing it with an infinate string, length TLD. This is certainly NOT an improvement over the current situation. At the vary least, the current system maintains some semblence of consistency (not nessecerily order...) within the system.

      Regardless of weather this is a good idea or not, it can't/won't happen because it would put the folks at ICANN out of work, and it's amazing what people will do to justify their job. There would be lobying right left and center to maintain the status quo. Domain registrars will suddenly be put in the same position ads companies in the music industry foolishly put themselves, with regard to having a business model inconsistant with changing technology. I have to admit though, it is an interesting suggestion.

      --CTH
  • .scum

    It's designed specifically for businesses.

  • I know this has probably been said before, but I really don't get the point of .info. All the promotional material I've seen is encouraging business to register their names in the .info TLD, presumably the same business that registered the same name in the .com TLD. So .info will be pretty much an exact mirror of .com, except for a few confusing exceptions. Fantastic.
  • Who's going to be the first to register "slashdot.info"?
    • [blatent attempt at lame humor]

      wouldn't that indicate that there is actual info on /.?

      [/lame humor]

  • Ummm.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quantum bit ( 225091 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:30PM (#2149408) Journal
    If the root were completely open, then they would just squabble over who has the trademark rights for gTLDs rather than second level domains. You're only substituting one limited resource for another...
    • The rules for gTLDs would have to be:

      1. *Any* gTLD can be created.
      2. Anyone can register any second-level domain in
      any TLD, excepting the existing ones with
      special limitations, and perhaps with a few
      new ones with restrictions (.kids, maybe).
      3. Trademark disputes can't be based on the name
      alone but must take into consideration what is
      being done with that name -- trademarks are
      only relevant to *trade*, after all, and within
      that are bound by trademark classes (type of
      product/service) and by geography.

      Note on point 3: My phone number could be 555-LEGO, and The Lego Company wouldn't have any grounds or even incentive to sue me unless I were using it to sell toy building bricks, or using it in a way that disparages them or might somehow confuse consumers. Same should apply online.

      I'd actually like to see the DNS redone as a hierarchy similar to that used for Usenet, which would make it clear from the name itself exactly how the term is being used. But that ain't gonna happen, so the only sensible approach to trademarks and domain names is the "look at the content" concept.

  • News Flash... (Score:3, Informative)

    by InfinityWpi ( 175421 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:29PM (#2150127)
    Domain name registrations are crooked! Why, I hear Amarni didn't even get to register Armani.com!

    Seriously, tho... remember when Xerox and Kleenex got their panties in a bunch insisting their names weren't generic? Has anyone tried registering one or the other and arguing that it's a generic term? ie, 'Hand me a kleenex' or 'go Xerox my arse'?

    • Xerox and Kleenex have large well-funded staff. If you are a script-writer for a TV show, you *CAN* use the line "Hand me a kleenex". However, if a box of tissues shows on camera, and it's Scott or something other than Kleenex, the show *WILL* get a nice notification about it.

      Similarly, if a character says "Let me go Xerox this", and it's a Canon, there WILL be repercussions.

      To have any chance of winning, you'd have to show that it HAD become generic, like linoleum (which used to be a trademark). It's covered in 15 USC 22 (1065)(4):

      (4) no incontestable right shall be acquired in a mark which is the generic name for the goods or services or a portion thereof, for which it is registered.
      However, the courts have held that agggressive action against any infringements found is defense against this. So much effort is expended on sending a nice letter to *every* infringement spotted, no matter how slight.

      A number of people with projects at SourceForge that have software that talks to AOL's messaging software, and which uses the letters 'A', 'I', and 'M' in their project titles, recently got nice "cut it out" letters from a AOL's legal support crew.

      IANAL, but I suspect trying to register it and use "generic" as a defense would get you sued to your skivvies. You'd have better luck using the defense that you're engaged in a different line of business, with different goods and services (which is why the ABC television network has a trademark on 'ABC', but ABC Bug Exterminators can have a trademark as well - they are in different business segments and unlikely to cause confusion.

      This actually impacted Apple Computer - in order to use 'Apple', they had to make concessions to Apple Records to not engage in music distribution.

  • Wrong economic metaphor (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tbo ( 35008 )
    Perhaps the reason we have so much trouble with domain names is that we have the wrong economic metaphor (or none at all). Why not treat domain names as real estate? If you're the first to stake a claim to coke.biz, congratulations. Coke can get into a bidding war with Pepsi to buy it. Same as if you were the first to stake a claim to a piece of swamp loaded with oil, or whatever. OTOH, if you use coke.biz to put up a site that is confusingly similar to the Coke website, then and only then could you be sued for trademark infringement.

    This whole WIPO/ICANN deal doesn't seem so hot. Time for something new?

    Alternatively, I do like the idea of opening the TLDs to everyone, but it might get confusing for Lusers ("coke.biz? Don't you mean coke.biz.com? Argh! I'll just go back to AOL...")

    • "coke.biz? Don't you mean coke.biz.com? Argh! I'll just go back to AOL..."

      Speaking of AOL lusers, I was just wondering if some of them have for the most part forgotten or ereased from their mind the concept of .com and .net and other TLDs?

      You:"Open the web browser and go to Coke's site."
      AOLer:"That's keyword coke, right?"

      Maybe you have experienced this. I have not. Maybe this idea probably isn't new to any of you, but I just thought of it.

    • Re:Wrong economic metaphor (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mike Schiraldi ( 18296 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @05:07PM (#2166510) Homepage Journal
      The reason land rushes "worked" is that it wasn't easy to stake off a huge amount of land. You had to be living on the land and using it -- you couldn't just declare "I own everything in the rectangle from San Diego to St. Louis."

      If anyone could register these names, there would be a huge DoS attack on the registration servers on the first day, it would all be over in about an hour, and there would be no rhyme or reason on the net ("Gee, how do i get to CNN again? Oh yeah, it's fkenncsodrsdg.biz")
    • Perhaps the reason we have so much trouble with domain names is that we have the wrong economic metaphor (or none at all). Why not treat domain names as real estate? If you're the first to stake a claim to coke.biz, congratulations. Coke can get into a bidding war with Pepsi to buy it. Same as if you were the first to stake a claim to a piece of swamp loaded with oil, or whatever. OTOH, if you use coke.biz to put up a site that is confusingly similar to the Coke website, then and only then could you be sued for trademark infringement.

      Actually, we had that model for a long (well, in internet time) time. The problem with that was the domain-name speculators, who would pay the (comparitively small) domain name registrations and sit on thousands of domains, selling them for absurd amounts.

      Nobody really liked that model, except the people who profited by registering other people's trademarks.
  • I WAnt .colk:) and anyone stopping me will be shot by my crack team of snipers

  • Take my idea...please (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ralph Wiggam ( 22354 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:45PM (#2166357) Homepage
    I think Nympho.info would be a great name for a web site. It was available as of 5 minutes ago. I don't want to bother with it, but one of you guys might. Go for it.

    -B

  • Anybody game? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AX.25 ( 310140 )
    INFO WHOIS Lookup BETA This WHOIS contains official Queue 1 and Queue 2 results. You searched for: "microsoft" The domain name you searched is not in the registry, and may be available for registration. To register a domain name, contact an Afilias-authorized registrar.

  • Trademarks?!?! (Score:2, Informative)

    by pod ( 1103 )
    From the .info FAQ [afilias.info]:

    Who is eligible to register a domain during the Open Registration period?

    .INFO is the only new unrestricted top-level domain, and anyone may register a .INFO domain name for any purpose.

  • Control over the means of production... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by webmaven ( 27463 ) <webmaven@nOsPAM.cox.net> on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:56PM (#2166434) Homepage

    As usual, I should point out that if the root were run properly, allowing any TLD to be added, this squabbling over an artificially-limited resource would be eliminated.
    Indeed.

    It is becomming increasingly apparent to me that as we move from a scarcity economy to one of abundance, attention is shifting from control of scarce resources to control of the means of creating scarcity.

    In other words, in an abundance economy, the only thing that is scarce is scarcity itself.

    Therefore, ICANN can be viewed as nothing more than a tool for manufacturing and maintaining scarcity, and after that scarcity has been created, a tool for controlling it.
    • Wow. Insight of the day. Thanks. And an avalanche of other legal and administrative initiatives intended to accomplish this. Imma hava think on one.
      • As another example to manufacturing scarcity (albeit an entirely legal one), consider Ty Beanie Babies: This is a company that developed a specific expertise in creating an artificial scarcity, and making sure that supply was always just a step behind demand.

        For a more sinister example, consider the coal mining and oil industries which have been funding the anti-nuclear movement behind the scenes for years, and scuttling space-based power sattelite plans to maintain the energy scarcity that keeps people using fossil fuels.

        Or General Motors, which bought up the Los Angeles Red-Line trolley system, only in order to dismantle it, thereby creating a transportation scarcity in Los Angeles, which their cars helped fill.

        I'm sure you can think of other examples, both historical and recent.
        • I am familiar with the notion of manipulating scarcity to drive demand. GM played the same games in several major cities, including my own. I hadn't considered the idea of manufacturing scarcity of digital resources, or I had, but hadn't named it. DMCA is the canonical example, of course.
    • After I had setup a false internal TLD in our test lab I mentioned how easy it would be for someone to just build a simple plugin or something that would direct people to use a homebrew dns, then start selling .whatever to
      whoever.

      a few months after that conversation i saw (here iirc) the http://www.new.net [slashdot.org] announcement. Now its a reality. I think more people should be hosting their own dns tld and we should just be able to resolve different sets of dns depending on who we resolve through. I guess I'll have to set up my own tld dns server at home tonight and start using that in my sig.

  • Nobody's grabbed this one? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nick Number ( 447026 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @04:57PM (#2166439) Homepage Journal
    You searched for:
    "icann.info"

    The domain name you searched is not in the registry, and may be available for registration. To register a domain name, contact an Afilias-authorized registrar.
  • You may be amused that:
    slashdot.info
    is still available ... at least perhaps it was until I posted this reply. :-)

  • The ones that need to be challenged will be challenged, and the ones where nobody at the trademark holder cares enough to do so will not be challenged... this is not hard.

    OTOH, I wonder if in a legal battle over trademark dilutions (not necessarily involving domains), would the fact that the trademark holder did not register $WHATEVER.biz and $WHATEVER.info be held against them?

    Also, Mr. Andrews of the United Kingdom, I spit in the face of your alleged trademark of the word "the". THE THE THE THE THE. Nyah.

    If they did this the "right way" as noted in earlier comments, I'd gain ownership of *.jonkatz and make a mint off of disgruntled Slashdotters...

  • unlimited TLDs is a bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fetta ( 141344 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @05:09PM (#2166526)
    As usual, I should point out that if the root were run properly, allowing any TLD to be added, this squabbling over an artificially-limited resource would be eliminated.

    This sounds like a recipe for mass confusion to me. Let me see, is that web site I want to go to called:

    • slashdot.com
    • slashdot.biz
    • slashdot.buisness
    • slashdot.cohost
    • slashdot.fred
    • slashdot.bob
    • slashdot.tom
    • slashdot.dick
    • slashdot.and
    • slashdot.harry
    • etc.

    The result would be that anyone trying to maintain any kind of brand identity (or just prevent porn sites from snapping up similar names) would have to employ a full time person just to continually register names. Sounds like a jobs program combined with a revenue creation mechanizm for the name registrars. The lawyers would like it too - lots of new opportunities for copyright infringement lawsuits.

    • The result would be that anyone trying to maintain any kind of brand identity (or just prevent porn sites from snapping up similar names) would have to employ a full time person just to continually register names.

      Sounds like what we need is not more top-level domains, but rather a law that says you may only own one domain. Period. If you're General Motors , you can have gm.com or generalmotors.com, but not both. then Pontiac cannot have pontiac.com, it must be www.gm.com/pontiac or something similar.

      Now, this is just my personal prejudice showing, but I think it would solve the problem you raise as well. I support it because I don't think Kraft foods should be allowed to have www.kraft.com; they should be forced to use www.phillipmorris.com/kraft, so everyone knows they're a tobacco company, not a food company. And I'm not picking on Kraft; Nabisco is also a tobacco company, as is Chateau Ste. Michelle and many other companies most people have no idea are in the tobacco business. And I'm not just picking on tobacco; lots of businesses are really fronts for other owners, owners they'd rather their customers didn't know about. What's wrong with shining a little light on the cockroaches, especially if it frees up some domain names?

      • Not only would there be clear identification of who owns it (how can a domain squatter register a third level domain?) but it would save a lot of stress on the DNS AND it would save companies $35.00/year per third level domain - no more paying Veri$ign for each name you registered.

        I routinely see this with country branch offices of such things as ibm.com: ca.ibm.com for Canada, us.ibm.com for US specific offices, etc.

        Domain and web hosts won't do this for some reason. They call these "vanity domains." What difference does it make to them if they charge the same amount per domain? Or are they under contract with Veri$ign to make us pay V$ for each domain, regardless of level?

        Think about it domain / web hosts... save your customers some money so they'll register more level 3+ domains (and pay you more) and not have to pay V$.
      • Now, this is just my personal prejudice showing, but I think it would solve the problem you raise as well. I support it because I don't think Kraft foods should be allowed to have www.kraft.com; they should be forced to use www.phillipmorris.com/kraft, so everyone knows they're a tobacco company, not a food company. And I'm not picking on Kraft; Nabisco is also a tobacco company, as is Chateau Ste. Michelle and many other companies most people have no idea are in the tobacco business. And I'm not just picking on tobacco; lots of businesses are really fronts for other owners, owners they'd rather their customers didn't know about. What's wrong with shining a little light on the cockroaches, especially if it frees up some domain names?

        It's usually a bad idea to make a general rule to deal with a specific case (e.g. your tobacco company example). I think the goal should be helping people to go where they want to go on the Internet, not to score political or idealogical points.

        Good Cases make Bad Laws - legal truism
        • It's usually a bad idea to make a general rule to deal with a specific case (e.g. your tobacco company example). I think the goal should be helping people to go where they want to go on the Internet, not to score political or idealogical points.

          Ordinarily I would agree, except that ICANN has already made it a political and idealogical issue. What I propose is not a general rule to deal with a specific case, it's a general rule to deal with a general case: we're running out of domain names, so why not ration them? Limit everyone to one and only one domain. Period. The proposal doesn't target anyone in particular so it's non-discriminatory. Why should anyone [slashdot.org] be allowed to own a domain they don't use [slashdot.com]?

  • What's the point? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mikeboone ( 163222 )
    Why bother with TLDs anyway? These days the big companies just register them all.

    If Microsoft registers microsoft.com, microsoft.biz, and microsoft.info, how is that any better than if we had just one TLD called microsoft.com? The more TLDs you add, the more they'll buy. Only the registrars win.

  • What's the point? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rick the Red ( 307103 ) <Rick.The.Red@nOsPaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @05:16PM (#2166568) Journal
    I thought the whole idea behind .biz was that we were running out of room in .com. Acme Plumbing lost out on acme.com to Acme Anvils and now had a shot at acme.biz. If Acme Anvils gets to pick acme.biz first then what's the point?

    This is all so bogus. If all the trademark owners who already have .com domains grab all the .biz domains, then A) what's the point of .biz? and B) what's the problem with .com?

    It's all just a scam to sell virtual addresses to people who don't understand the internet. Really, if someone clicks on Slashdot do they really care if the link takes them to "slashdot.org" or "slashdot.com" or "slashdot.biz" or "www.reallycoolwebhost.com/slashdot"? As long as some plug-in doesn't redirect them here [microsoft.com], what's the problem? I.e., what's the need for .biz?

  • [...] allowing any TLD to be added, this squabbling over an artificially-limited resource would be eliminated.

    I can't see how this would eliminate the problem !?
  • Well, the sites linked to in this post are all currently getting the living hell /.'d out of them... By just drawing attention to the issue, the evil, bogus domains can't be registered right now. Slashdot saves the day!

    Doesn't this violate the Prime Directive?

    If a registrar's site falls in the woods...

    the ICANNberg Uncertainly Principle?

  • So... looks like linux.biz is free. Who wants to pick it up before a cash-hemmorhaging Linux company takes it?
  • In the 1800's, as the United States landholdings increased dramatically, citizens and immigrants began to move west.

    The United States Government offered land lotteries, where interested parties obtained land for free, based on a first come, first serve basis. Fair and agreeable terms were initiated, and the squabbles were quite a bit less than the domain squabbles that exist today.

    The same lottery should exist today. I rarely sponsor government interference in ANYTHING, but this seems an applicable reason for government: to protect private property 'squatters' from getting a ride they didn't wait for like everyone else. Domain names should be free and first come, first serve. If I want ford.biz, and ford hasn't asked for it, then I get it. Companies need to get over this "company misrepresentation" crap. And the government should give away the domains for free, not form some 'good ole boy' network like the FCC is.

  • Because the baboons seem to have screwed the whole thing up...

    Yes, the word MOVIE was TRADEMARKED back in 1890 with a registration of 000000000.

    pulheeze!

    My genitalia was trademarked in 1965 as micro-soft for obvious reasons by my family. Can I have microsoft.biz now?
  • "if the root were run properly, allowing any TLD to be added..."

    This is an incredibly naive and irresponsible assertion.

    If you aren't familiar enough with DNS to understand

    • the effect of adding TLDs on DNS cache hit rates (they decrease)
    • the effect of adding TLDs on DNS root server load (the loads increase)
    • the technical difficulties associated with having a large number of root servers (adding more servers doesn't necessarily help the load problem)
    • the undesirability of having poorly-managed TLDs
    • the undesirability of having a flat DNS space (which is the logical result of truly allowing any TLD)
    ...then you don't know enough to be making such assertions.

    Nor would allowing more TLDs help this particular problem. If a small number of new TLDs have problems with SLDs inappropriately claimed as trademarks, the problem would be even more difficult to fix with a large number of TLDs.

    • the effect of adding TLDs on DNS cache hit rates (they decrease)

      Trivially, if at all. Looking up NS for 'ford.com.', charitably assuming NS for 'com.' has been cached, is one query. Likewise looking up NS for hypothetical TLD 'ford.' would be one query. The labor just shifts from the gTLD servers to the root servers. Same amount of work.

      the effect of adding TLDs on DNS root server load (the loads increase)

      See above.

      the technical difficulties associated with having a large number of root servers

      Do tell. A bigger cache preload file shipped with resolvers? Going from 250 bytes to 500? Heavens. We'll all have to sell our gold fillings to buy larger hard drives.

      the undesirability of having poorly-managed TLDs

      First of all, that's a separate issue. Secondly, who cares? If they're poorly managed, they're poorly managed. Why is that a problem for anyone except those who depend on that particular TLD - just like people who now depend on a particular ISP or other service provider?

      the undesirability of having a flat DNS space

      Huh? .com + .net + .org is as about as flat as it could possibly be - how many zillion 2LDs does .com have again? Oh, you say that .museum solved all that and now we've reached the optimal level of hierarchy? I see.

    • The biggest problem is that Domain names are just BS anyways. If you can sucessfully run a server at 205.138.137.216/index.html and it get's indexed at google, lookie you got traffic! Sure it's not as easy to remember as www.hot-fat-babes.com but except for a few (as in 5-10) sites you remember, most everything else you visit is as a link or a "favorite" where you dont even care what the domain name is. Now, Dynamic DNS is useable for those damned dynamic IP addresses some people are forced to use.

      I say someone put together a GNUDNS system and we all flip ICANN the bird... Make it open, make it controlled by a board of 20 people who are the pinnicale of Internet tech (not management) and only allow those people to be on the board for a period of 2 years and then they are gone. (also no more than 2 employees from any one company)
      Oh, and make RMS the head of the board just to make things fun.
  • Unofficial TLD's are out there. I use a few myself for my internal networks. What's to stop a motivated group of enthusiasts from creating .kids on their own? Register dotkids.info or something to tell partents to encourage their ISP's to add their root servers to the ISP's bind configs. Wasn't one of the new TLD suggestions rejected because there was a group who was doing exactly that, running their own root servers? So many groups want a kid friendly zone, but they don't have the balls to make and enforce one? (enforcement is the real tricky part...)

    If I sould half assed, your wrong. Quarter assed would be a better assesment of what I know about TLDs and the root name servers...

  • cats.info not bogus (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Actually cats.info [afilias.info] (one of the examples in the original post) was registered by Tre-Mag Sweden AB [tre-mag.se] which publishes the porn magazine Cats. Since they also have a trademark [www.prv.se] for that name and since it doesn't say [afilias.info] that it has to be a trademark registered in the USA to be eligible for registration, I really don't see why this would count as bogus.

    More interestingly, there are four other trademark holders for the name Cats in Sweden alone (for products and services in other trademark classes) so there are probably at least a hundred other companies all over the world who might feel that they have the same right to the name as Tre-Mag...

    Anyhow, it's good to see that the porn industry are still Internet pioneers. :-)

    /J

  • I just pre-registered for slashdot.info, with the round robin registration system, who knows... I might even get it.
  • oh, for the days when you either memorized or wrote down IP addy's and the 'net wasn't clogged with aol'ers and lawyers.
  • Freedom [afilias.info] and Liberty [afilias.info] are apparently trademarked.
    One company, YesNIC has registered trademark [afilias.info], food [afilias.info] and Life [afilias.info].
    Government [afilias.info] is also registered. I suppose next they'll be confiscating the Declaration of Independence.
  • I mean, seriously. The way to end all this domain squatting is simple.

    Anyone who has a trademark gets that .TLD domain. Coca Cola gets .coke, .cocacola, .dietcoke, and all those. If it's a word -- in any language, then someone can lay claim to it.

    Thus if Coca Cola Corporation wants people to go to http://I.Love.Dietcoke, then they have to run a DNS server that serves up the .dietcoke domain.

    I don't think it's impossible. I think that the root servers would wind up being a big dictionary, with the IPs of the various DNS servers for the various words. It could easily be extended to be mulitlingual (beyond what Unicode would allow), and it'd make everyone happy.

    It would also simplify claims. It would be legal for me to use http://I.hate.dietcoke.mydomain because that's fair use. International trademarks, etc., would be decided in whatever legal forum it is that those sort of fuzzy property rights are decided in.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • People Don't Understand the Process (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mzito ( 5482 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @06:34PM (#2167076) Homepage
    People really don't understand how the process that the Internet is going through with regards to new TLD additions. This is a TESTBED phase - the whole concept being that they try adding several new tlds with varied scope and purposes to see what the implications and results are. This is the same process that was done when Network Solutions was the only domain name registrar. 5 testbed registrars were chosen to see what would happen when the market was opened to competition - one year later, the market was opened up as a whole and today there are several hundred accredited registrars, and one of the top 3 registrars (Tucows/OpenSRS) was not even one of the testbed registrars.

    The reason the testbed phase is important is because of exactly the reasons people are complaining about the new TLDs. Now that people have noticed that there's a problem with trademark holder verification, perhaps when the process is opened up (which ICANN has said it will, assuming the testbed phase works) that will be remedied. You have to look at this as a feasibility experiment. Look at the new TLDs:

    -.pro - restricted use, but unique in that it provides identity/professional proof of id (for lawyers, etc)

    -.info - unrestricted tld, just like .com. Come and get 'em

    -.biz - for businesses only, iirc. Semi-restricted TLD

    -.museum - very specific restricted TLD

    -.coop - for non-profits, etc.

    This is a textbook example of what should do for a feasibility study - select examples of each type and put them into production. See what happens. Make note of what works and what doesn't and use that to formulate an overall policy.

    The idea that ICANN is somehow for limiting the number of TLDs is ludicrous - everyone, from the internet populace at large up to domain name registrars, want new top-level domain names. Everyone would win. But ICANN cannot simply open up the field without understanding and learning about what the implications are. People are looking almost entirely at the technical issues with adding new TLDs, while completely ignoring policy and procedural issues. Issues like false trademark submissions only prove how necessary this process is.

    Thanks,

  • The meaning of .info (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cgenman ( 325138 )
    If people are going to be turning to .info to find out actual information about companies and services, shouldn't those companies be excluded from registering that name? In fact, isn't it our moral imperative to register microsoft.info to let people know the actual information about shoddy software and trust violations? I personally see this registering of other companies trademarks as the exact sort of thing which should be encouraged (except for squatting purposes).

    If aolsucks.com violates some sort of trademark law against saying anything that could possibly reduce the stock options of the directors, wouldn't a reasoned aol.info site with reasoned news about system outages, social acceptability, and technology lockdowns pass a legal test?

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