ICANN Sneaks In Reserved Names For Existing TLDs 148
"But, under everybody's noses, ICANN has recently snuck in some name exclusions for the existing TLDs, com, net and org. This was hidden in the revised agreements between ICANN and Verisign. See this page in ICANN's site (this is from the com agreement, but similar provisions are in the other two).
Among things that are excluded from use as second level domains are all one and two letter names, all names that are the same as another TLD (both the existing ones and the group like museum that's planned for debut this year), and, most questionably, various names and acronyms relating to ICANN, IANA, and other Internet governing organizations, including aso, dnso, pso, ietf, and ripe. No other organizations in the world yet have the power to ban their names or acronyms from use in all TLDs (though many are clamoring for these powers), but ICANN and IANA have taken this right in a bald power grab, stopping the many other entities in the world whose initials happen to match these from having a right to try to obtain sensible domain names for themselves.
These exclusions apply only to new registrations, not renewals, so the many existing domain names that violate these exclusions will be allowed to continue so long as they don't lapse for nonpayment or get cancelled by a domain dispute panelist's decision.
I have more domain name information and commentary in my site."
Re:Domain Names (Score:1)
Re:Microsoft? (Score:1)
The fact that everyone here is fussing over foo.COM or foo.INC or foo.CX just shows how overly nerdy people are. It's actually easier for the masses (the asses) to type "foo" into the addressbar and let the browser's search/keyword function figure it out. But since you guys are so old skool, you've been typing full domain names and haven't figured it out yet.
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:1)
Yeah, I have a 486 box running Linux 2.0.38 which I can donate. We only need about 100,000 more of them and we're set.
Re:So remember kids, (Score:1)
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:1)
I advocate the solution of subverting the hierarchy by standing on top of it. Quick example: you want to create a TLD called blah, and a domain called slashdot inside of it. So, you configure the root of blah as ex1.com and ex2.com. What happens now?
Your resolver remaps all queries for blah TLD entries and appends either ex1.com or ex2.com (balancing the load), and then passes it along. Your ISP's name servers see a query for slashdot.blah.ex1.com and do the usual thing with it.
This attacks the problem from the *client* side, so there is no expectation or need for the server operators to change. Also, anyone can create any alternate TLD, since it's just a matter of convincing people to use your set of supporting domains instead of someone else's.
Re: You don't say! (Score:1)
Actually it's not the country that sucks, it's the people. But don't take my word for it. Go there with an open mind and find out for yourself.
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:2)
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:2)
One - you cant register TLDs, only SLDs within TLDs..
Second, 'hosting content on a hostname' within a domain is not the only use of a domain. WWW != Internet.
It is perfectly legitimate to register a domain to use for naming hosts providing a variety of services, none of which include http service on any host named 'www'
True, many domains are truly not in use, but defining as use as 'hosting content' is incorrect.
Re:Who Decides? (Score:3)
They're not and that's why they don't have it, Nissan Computer Services in North Carolina does. However, Nissan Motors has appx two and a half shitloads of lawyers so they will wield them like a hammer and pummel that poor Jew fellow who owns Nissan Computing Services.
Re:1 and 2 letter names (Score:3)
Re:Who Decides? (Score:3)
None of this would happen if Jon Postel was alive. (Score:4)
We need:
[1] a new set of root servers (easy).
[2] copy all existing TLD and SLD info to these servers (time consuming/expensive but possible)
[3] set policy. "First come, first serve." (that's it. done.)
[4] Convince big name ISPs to point to these root servers. (extremely difficult)
Re:Who Decides? (Score:5)
Do you want:
- Nissan Computers [linktonissancomputers]
- Nissan Motors [linktonissanmotors]
Same for anything else. sunsetmotel.com (I just made that up) would be an index to all the Sunset Motels in the world. If there are 15 legitimate contender, it's better to have an index, than to have one winner and people who can't find the address of the Sunset Motel they have in mind.
That's why I prefer an index like Google with some editorial power. Compare a helpful index [google.com] with the winner of a stupid URL war [sunsetmotel.com].
Downplay ICANN! Use search engines and private indexes!
Along the same lines... (Score:3)
- A.P.
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:2)
Re:Who Decides? (Score:2)
Ignoring the likes of Hyundai and Daewoo, ofcourse.
...j
Who Decides? (Score:5)
This bothers me because then the 'big boys' woulds decide with copyright holder is entitled to teh domain. Case in point, Nissan.com [nissan.com] run by Nissan Computer services, but Nissan Motors wants it, too.
Under the old system, Nissan Computers got it becuase he was there first, and because he has a legal right to the name. Under the new system, I guarantee that Nissan.com ( dot-whatever) would go to Nissan Motors without any sort of consideration. This a a Bad Thing.
But then again, why Is Nissan Motors entitled to that name anyway? 'Nissan' is not their name, it's Nissan Motors (or something to that effect).
.
Re:Hidden in the agreement? (Score:1)
Sounds like the Internet community needs better representation. Of course, since ICANN is theoretically representative now (kinda) (sorta), perhaps there's grounds for a malpractice suit, or at least an ethics inquiry.
Dare to dream, I guess.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:It just never stops, does it. (Score:3)
The Internet became popular not because some business decided to push it, originally. Businesses were latecoming. It became popular because there were enough people doing enough cool stuff that it attracted everyone else.
What does this have to do with domains and root servers?
If we start using non-ICANN domains for our really cool stuff, the free stuff, and resist the temptation to put anything more than instructions on how to get to the cool stuff (e.g. change your resolver hosts) on legacy TLDs, then it can more quickly build up a following.
If the .mp3 domain gets going soon, how long do you think it will take the RIAA to be using alternate domains?
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:1)
Actually, this has been relaxed a bit lately. You still have to be a registered corp/org, but you can have several domains (I can't find any limit in the current docs), and the domain names don't have to relate to the organization name.
Regarding por.no, it was reserved, together with a bunch of other names (such as city, county and other geographical names (which are used as third level domains, previously for businesses based in those areas, you had to have national presence to get an SLD). The reserved list shrunk significantly during the relaxation of the rules, ee the list [norid.no]
of reserved names.© 2000 Ilmari. All ritghts reserved, all wrongs reversed
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:2)
~dlb
Re:Where's Grammar Nazi? (Score:1)
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:3)
Why force standardized names? (Score:2)
First, let's all agree on some not-necessarily-human-friendly universal description of what things are (incorporating D&B #s or whatever), something that you and only you can and should have and that computers and people can use when they must refer to precisely you across arbitrary contexts.
For everyday usage, let's build computers that "do the right stuff". For instance, if I type http://coke the machine should present me with visual images of a can of soda and a lump of coal, the default selected by the current context. (Was I previously searching for minerals? Was I previously searching for entertainment or food?)
Everybody in the world will ultimately come up with their own personal names for a few things, and other things will come together "by convention", just like real life!
Y'reckon?
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:2)
That's ridiculous. One of my own domains sends and recieve thousands of emails a day, but has nothing "hosted on it" if you're referring to HTTP... On the other hand, one of my other domains DOES have something "hosted on it" but consume far less bandwidth because it's almost never visited.
I'm not squatting on either of them, and as far as I can tell, nobody would have any right to snatch them back off me, regardless of whether or not I have "something hosted on it".
Remedy (Score:5)
Um, wait a second...
Re:The Problem isn't going to be fixed this way. (Score:1)
so its not always free...
Best site about ICANN (Score:2)
http://www.paradigm.nu/icann/icannstage.html [paradigm.nu]
And a Reg story here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/18530.html [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Coke is an interesting example... (Score:1)
Easily enough arranged. Home address, please?
Re:Hey nutball only American liberals use "offensi (Score:1)
Hey, according to *Dutch* standards, even American liberals are very conservative.
Thank you for exactly pointing out what I meant: there are other viewpoints in the world than the American ones, but it seems hard for some Americans to accept that this mere possibility even exists..
abusive? (Score:5)
Abusive? To American standards? To Muslim standards? To Buddhist standards? Does this mean the entire world has to compy with a view of what is abusive that is typically American?
It is bad enough already that the com/net/org domains fall under American jurisdiction, now we have to comply with American conservatism too...
When will everybody start to realize that the Internet is more International that the United States?
The Problem isn't going to be fixed this way. (Score:2)
Adding
Then, the internet went global. Now you have every company on the face of the globe competing for the same name in the
To further compound the problem, companies in the same business are allowed to have the same name, provided they don't overlap regions. Restaraunts are a classic example of this. How many differrent cities have a "Grandma's Restaraunt" or "Mom's Kitchen", when none of them are related? So who gets mom.com?
First come, first serve makes sense initially, but the problem is easy to see, and easy to see blow up - which is what happened - when it goes global.
The TLD system needs to be completely revamped to have several different manners of identifying the same business.
1) There should be a geographical notation TLD - sort of a business.city.state/province.country
Ex: momskitchen.newyork.newyork.us and momskitchen.neworleans.louisianna.us
People will adjust to the difference in nomenclature - and it isn't all that complicated. However, this system presents a problem for large multinationals. So, we need to address this. Perhaps a
2) We need to have a business type TLD system - so that Bob's Car Market and Bob's soul kitchen and Bob's spandex emporium all can have a reasonable web address. So businessname.businesstype.country might work for them.
This is the type of stuff that is going to need to be done to fix this problem. It's going to need to be totally revamped in a manner similar to what I have above.
Then, when changing over, give businesses 1 year to grab their web address (since they can no longer claim ignorance to the net) and then put them up for grabs.
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:3)
Two problems here.
1. TLD is a top level domain, like
2. What if people aren't putting web content on them? What if, for example, they are using it as a second level domain specific to a particular non-web service, like email? Some companies have domains dedicated to email, for various (legitimate) reasons.
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:3)
Get real, will you? I knew Jon Postel [isoc.org] - I had a beer with him in Geneva the year he died - and I knew his long and close friendship with Vint Cerf [worldcom.com], whom I also know. And Vint is now Senior Vice President for Technology at MCI WorldCom [worldcom.com].
One of the things that tied Vint and Jon together (apart from being close friends for thirty years) was that both of them cared passionately about a free and open Internet. Vint still does. You only need to look at his page on Social, Economic and Regulatory Issues [worldcom.com] to see that. ISOC [isoc.org]'s slogan 'The Internet is for Everyone [worldcom.com]' is very much his slogan.
I think everyone agrees that ICANN [icann.org] is a mess - but it's a mess brought about by lawyers (mainly American lawyers), not by the Internet pioneers. Also, and this is what makes me most worried about articles like this one, is that the people who are doing most to damage the concept of a free, open Internet for everyone are not the pioneers - they're the get-rich-quick sleazoids who come in on the back of the pioneer's work and try to grab a chunk of the territory for themselves. We can all see that people who register patents [slashdot.org] for old and obvious ideas just by tagging 'Internet' onto the end of them are sleazoids. Can you not see that alternate TLD registrar wannabes are also sleazoids?
Yes, ICANN stinks. Yes, we need a more open, democratic authority controlling the top-level domains. But the Internet pioneers are not the enemy, and MCI is not the enemy. And in my opinion, the second thing that needs doing to ICANN (after making it democratic) is to move it out of American legal jurisdiction.
uk.com, and others (Score:5)
I do agree with the first two options (although not with the third as I think that is abusing the system badly - maybe Coke will pay ICANN and Verisign to reserve coke.tld in all namespaces in the future (even coke.book or coke.museum or whatever silly TLDs are released) whatever their Trademark covers).
However, if uk.com is accidentally not reregistered, then there will be an awful lot of angry customers of uk.com when their domains stop working. I imagine similar services exist for other countries, de.com? fr.com? eu.com I know exists...
Perfect as Verisign just start their own "uk.com" service using the reserved word because "The domain just wasn't reregistered - your credit card was never authorised (never entered into the terminal more like) - sorry, nothing we can do"...
In the UK, the first two rules already exist, hence there is only one 1 letter domain (x.co.uk), and a few 2 letter domains (bt.co.uk, f9.co.uk) that were allocated before Nominet came in to manage the namespace. It works quite well, and gets rid of confusion. You cannot have gov.co.uk, or nhs.co.uk, or org.co.uk, as the third-level-domain conflicts with an second-level-domain.
Re:uk.com, and others (Score:1)
Also, how many anomalous names are there? www.bl.uk [www.bl.uk] is one - are there more? (There's stuff like www.parliament.uk [parliament.uk] and www.police.uk [police.uk] which are presumably post-Nominet and deliberate, but I guess that bl.uk is a relic ... ?
(BTW, this new anti-troll device is really annoying. It blocks posts from subnets where there has been a lot of down-moderated activity in the last 24 hours. So if you have the same ISP as a lot of trolls, then you can't post (unless you log into university machines :-) I really hope they refine the bloody thing ASAP - it seems silly to block posts from people whose karma is high. Off-topic, I know, but I guess there's hundreds of people who want to say this but can't.)
Re:Microsoft? (Score:1)
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:2)
Or if you're not feeling very creative, there are more than a hundred interesting possibilities at Peckerheads domain board [peckerheads.com].
Re:Domain Names (Score:1)
Of course, I don't think domain names SHOULD be considered trademarks, but that's how it will be as long as ICANN is in power...
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Re:Some of these names are already in use (Score:2)
It's official now, but a few years ago a company had it and was taking advantage of consumer confusion to pass through domain registrations to the real Internic (whose site was at www.internic.net) at a large markup. Presumably, some of these exclusions are designed to prevent that sort of fraud.
Coke is an interesting example... (Score:4)
It is unreasonable to give major corporations first dibs on names in TLDs unrelated to their primary area of business.
Trademark law (Score:5)
In general, with the exception of certain 'famous marks', a trademark applies only to one specific market.
I may hold the trademark for "Ferret's Bookstore", but that would only give me ownership of the domain "ferret.books" , not first dibs on "ferret.com" or "ferret.shop" or "ferret.xxx".
Before suggesting that an international organization take pains to protect American trademerks, first consider the definition of a "trade" "mark", and how a registration for a specific term used for a specific market in a specific locality applies to a global naming system.
1 and 2 letter names (Score:4)
I absolutely hate... (Score:5)
...people and organizations that cannot stand a bit of humor and fun. This is what that is. If no-one can register icann-sucks.com then no-one can make fun of them, right? Wrong! This is a call-to-arms! Spoof them now! Let them know that we will not stand for this desperate grab to appear legitimate!
Or we could just sit back and do nothing. Because, this is not that important or anything.
Ciao.
nahtanoj
Re:It just never stops, does it. (Score:2)
Claim your namespace.
It just never stops, does it. (Score:4)
With regard to your points:
[1] a new set of root servers (easy).
Done. Several such already exist. OpenNIC, AlterNIC, ORSC, TINC to name just a few. All of these are operating right now.
[2] copy all existing TLD and SLD info to these servers (time consuming/expensive but possible)
Not necessary. They can have .com, .net, .org and the new ones, as well. All we have to do is have the new root servers delegate the legacy TLDs to the ICANN/NSI servers. So ICANN does not cease to exist, it simply becomes one of many. It becomes subject to COMPETITION. People will be able to vote with their feet. In fact, people are alreasy beginning to do so!
[3] set policy. "First come, first serve." (that's it. done.)
Not so simple. Generic TLDs should be first-come first served. There should also be a place for chartered TLDs, though, like the existing .edu. OpenNIC is mostly focussed on chartered TLDs, while the other alternate roots seem to have mostly generic TLDs. Rules and regulations pertaining to domain name ownership and rights and priority should be decided on a per-TLD basis, at the time of that TLD's incorporation into the root.
[4] Convince big name ISPs to point to these root servers. (extremely difficult)
That's the trick, allright. I think this will happen in stages. Stage 1 will be early adopters, mostly people who feel like they have a stake in the way the DNS is operated and who are fairly technically savvy. This is where we are now, with probably less than 20000 users of all the alternate roots combined. Stage 2, I think, will be when some of the free OS distros begin to include alternate DNS as an install option. Probably Debian, Slackware and the *BSD people will be first. This will bring in a ton more users. This may be less than a year away. We at OpenNIC have had discussion with people involved in some of these OS projects. Nothing has been decided, but positive noises have been made. At some point a critical mass will be reached. The alternate TLDs will begin to have enough content so that joe earthlink user will begin to call support and ask why he can't visit www.good.beer or something. This will be stage3, when the ISPs begin to come on board. At that point the revolution will have suceeded.
So get on the bandwagon early. Join up now!
Claim your namespace.
Hidden in the agreement? (Score:5)
When dealing w/ legal contracts such as this, nothing is hidden from the two sides making the deal. They've both been over the contract many times w/ a fine tooth comb.
Apparently someone thought it was a small enough concession to allow the contract to go through... me thinks you should join ICANN and complain there... Hate to break it to you, but complaining on /. might not be all that helpful
short e-mail addresses. (Score:3)
had a nice ring to it...
Nice as a personal e-mail domain, yes?
I'm not domain squatting or anything like that, and don't think I will *ever* sell it.
Just thout I'd brag.
Share and Enjoy.
there might actually be some merit to this (Score:4)
so someone who owned (say) com.store could screw everybody whose default domain ended in
ideally of course resolvers wouldn't do this.
but there are a lot of broken implementations out there, and its easier to fix this with ICANN policy than it is to update all of those broken resolver implementations.
Re:Who Decides? (Score:2)
For the same reason that the Honda Motor Co. of America's website is here [honda.com].
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To really make some money... (Score:5)
Real even handed there.... (Score:5)
Why not just throw in "puppy kickers vs noble citizens" while you're at it? the range of suggested exclusions looks like it spans the whole spectrum of entrenched, new, corporate, civic and public health concerns and definitly some would favor a "more" free and open internet than others. To put the whole range short of internet anarchist (those who prefer an anarctic internet, not a political appalation) as "intrenched interests" and the "no rules except first comes first served" crowd as moderates is just insulting to the intelligence of your readers.
yeah, /. has an agenda, and I know that when I come here, but could you lay the propaganda a little less thick next time? Some people want lots of limits. some want a few, some want a different few. You want none. Don't let your position blind you to the existance of a range outside of it, it just makes you look foolish.
Kahuna Burger
are you out of your mind? (Score:3)
This already exists! It's just that everyone wants a
Anyone who 'claims ignorance to the net' should have their business license revoked and the owners shot.
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:2)
Re:Domain Names (Score:2)
Yeah, but get 1-800-ITS-UNIX and AT&T will be all over your ass. :-/
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Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:2)
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Re:uk.com, and others (Score:2)
Perfect as Verisign just start their own "uk.com" service using the reserved word because "The domain just wasn't reregistered - your credit card was never authorised (never entered into the terminal more like) - sorry, nothing we can do"...
I used to work for CentralNic [centralnic.com], who operate uk.com, eu.com, de.com (not fr.com, that's somebody else) and many other similar domains of the form xx.com and xx.net, and the domains were renewed for ten years. So, even if Verisign "arranged" for the domain not to be renewed, your uk.com domain is safe from that until 2010.
In the UK, the first two rules already exist, hence there is only one 1 letter domain (x.co.uk), and a few 2 letter domains (bt.co.uk, f9.co.uk) that were allocated before Nominet came in to manage the namespace.[...]
This is more or less correct, except that you can have two-character domains provided that one is a letter and the other is a digit, so f9.co.uk is still valid under the present rules. I strongly doubt that any of the 520 such combinations remain unregistered though.
What I quite like about Nominet's rules is that you have to be an ISP to have a .net.uk address, and there are strict rules as to what the user can do with it. Unfortunately, Nominet do not appear to be policing this, and there are abuses such as onetel.net.uk (which IMO should be deleted for breach of contract).
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:2)
Re:Coke is an interesting example... (Score:2)
Obviously, (Score:5)
So remember kids, (Score:5)
Re:TLDs are names. (Score:4)
Re:Who Decides? (Score:2)
"Not affiliated with Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. For Nissan vehicles see "NissanDriven.com"
Not that you couldn't figure that out anyway (would Nissan Motors be selling computer hardware?).
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Re:Hidden in the agreement? (Score:5)
1) These restirictions only apply to this agreement with verisign.
2) If you actually read the restrictions, they are almost trivially stupid and obvious.
3) The actual names that ICANN is reserving are probably actually going to be used by ICANN or IETF et al. They are simply calling "first dibs" on those names which is their perogative. They are NOT restricting permutations that contain those names wuch as icann-sucks.
4) The two letter domains are only reserved unitl the "implementation of measures to avoid confusion with the corresponding country codes. " which is also perfectly reasonable.
5) Reserving single letter domain names is also reasonable considering how few there are and no one really has a "legitamate claim" to any of them. How would you settle a dispute between two people who wanted a.com?
Re:Where's Grammar Nazi? (Score:2)
FP.
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Re:The Problem isn't going to be fixed this way. (Score:2)
Re:Coke is an interesting example... (Score:3)
Some of these names are already in use (Score:5)
ICANN mentions "aso", "dnso", "icann", "internic" and "pso" as reserved for their own use as second-level domains. But www.aso.com is already "Aircraft Shopper Online", and www.dnso.com is a very nice anti-ICANN site. OK, www.icann.com already belongs to ICANN, and www.internic.com looks pretty official. (www.pso.com, on the other hand, is one of those spartan "under construction" doodads).
(I haven't checked the longer "IANA" list, but there are probably a few of these that are already taken, and not just in .com.)
Anyway, I can see why ICANN might want to shut down the "Gnomes of Zurich" (who claim credit for dnso.com), but what about those poor guys selling aeroplanes? Are they being forced to relocate?
So, does this mean ... (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:5)
Does this mean I can't register IANAL.com?
Maybe if IWAL (I was a lawyer) I could get away with it.
Tyranny, I tell you! Tyranny!
-- Chris
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:5)
-- Chris
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:2)
The problem with this policy, whether you enforce it under the existing system or another system, is that it is fundamentally in conflict with trademark law in most countries.
So we have this system. So I register nissan.cx. I have a Slashdot-like site for encryption junkies, and I sell hats and shirts with the RSA algorithms on them.
Okay, I get sued by Nissan. What else did I expect? They sue me for unlicensed use of their trademark and trademark dilution. Who wins in court? They do. After all, I was using their well-known mark to further my own business interests.
There's got to be a solution, but "first come first serve" is not it. It will probably require some changes in domain registration, and possibly changes to trademark law, and probably international treaties to make it work. (Trademark law different in different countries, and we have to get them to agree somehow.) Setting up a "first come first serve" DNS system is just asking for lawsuits.
Re:Who Decides? (Score:2)
And what if I happen to run "Nissan Fuck Shop"... do you really think that Nissan Motors' lawyers will sit back and be happy being listed right after me (after all, "F" comes before "M")?
I think not. Good idea, but in reality, the big boys wouldn't play nicely with the rest of us.
MadCow.
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:2)
You're on crack.
Look at the stats [root-servers.org] for one of the better-connected (and hence more-queried) of the 13 root servers. It's receiving about 2.2Mb/second between two interfaces, which - assuming about 100 bytes per request - is 2750 queries per second. Even charitably assuming all the servers get the same load, that's 35,750 queries per second worldwide.
I've run DNS servers almost that busy on $5K boxes. Bandwidth is the bigger issue. Free it ain't, but it's nowhere near the pipe dream you make it.
It kills me to write this.. (Score:4)
I think it is reasonable for a domain name that contains a trademarked word within X levels of a TLD to be reserved for that trademark holder. Why not? That TM holds up in any other media and as much as I love the anarcy of the Internet, these companies have a point and have rights to whatever they may trademark.
But the rules must be precise - no fuzzy "well its CLOSE to our trademark" BS. Either the word/phrase is in the domain and you own the trademark, or you don't and have no rights to it. And if you want to USE the names, you better pay up like the rest of us!
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Actually... (Score:4)
Admittedly it could cause some serious problems while being phased in. You'd be tossing people out of their domains left and right.
Once you were done, once a certain deadline had passed... You could phase out the trademark system and have everything done via domain name. Want to reserve a name? Forget paying a trademark lawyer $375; just reserve a domain name for $12. It's already taken? Darn.
so, i can't get something like; (Score:4)
Instead of being able to let everyone know about how I hate said product name - which I think is still protected under the first amendment - it has to be under a url like: w3.ispprovider.com/~username/speech/ihatehomedepo
It's BS -- who said I would be using the product name to market something? They've already decided what I intended to do with the name before I used it. I know its not illegal to refer to the product name of what I'm bashing.
Re:People are complaining about this? (Score:2)
________________________________________________
x.org? (Score:5)
Can anyone enlighten me?
________________________________________________
Re:People are complaining about this? (Score:2)
--Dan
Re:Hidden in the agreement? (Score:2)
Admittedly, the effect of these exclusions on the current TLDs is negligible because few if any of the affected names are available now anyway (though there will be an effect if somebody fails to renew their domain and it becomes unregistrable), but this provision appears to me to be a trial balloon towards imposing the same thing on all future TLDs, which would be a significant restriction, and would inevitably encourage pressure groups of all sorts to lobby to expand the excluded names to cover even more categories.
--Dan
Re:x.org? (Score:5)
On a tangentially related note, x.com was formerly used by a really sucky online bank, known for screwing its customers by freezing their accounts for no good reason and putting them in a Kafka-esque nightmare trying to deal with their bureaucracy to get them unfrozen, as well as changing their terms of service constantly without notice to impose minimum balances, fees, etc. where none existed before. Then they suddenly left the banking business, causing customers' checks to bounce as the accounts became unavailable and "the check was in the mail" to the customers to eventually get their balance back. Now they own PayPal [paypal.com] and are running that service in much the same screwball manner. Read some horror stories in sites like Epinions [epinions.com].
I don't know how they managed to get that single letter domain, but they don't seem to really be using it any more; it just redirects to the PayPal site now.
--Dan
Re:Domain Names (Score:2)
Actually that was not the rulling. A Domain name is not property for one part of the case but is for another.
The reason a domain name is not property is that it has no tangible representation. It is not like cash that can be deposited in the court. It is not even like cash in a bank account which is a representation that can be escrowed.
Of course a domain name is a valuable property the way a UK license plate number can be. (A1 resold for over a million dollars a while back). So damages were assesed on that basis.
I agree however that there should be a statute of limitations. Anyone who has not picked up a dot com yet for their trademark should lose the right to grab it from someone who did. That is not where domain name disputes are these days however, there are plenty of secondary names which arguably infringe trademarks (FordTruck.com for example).
Equally a lot of the petty name disputes (gwbush.com) could be solved by simply setting up name spaces that were policed in a reasonable fashion. For example the US government could assign .candidate.gov as a hierarchy for federal election candidates. To register in the hierarchy a person would have to meet certain legitimacy criteria (be standing as a candidate, use their original name or one they have been known by for a certain number of years, etc.).
The point is that there has to be a balance. First come first served does not solve every problem. Johnnie come lately grabs good domain with over priced, under ethical lawyers creates more problems than it solves.
Re:uk.com, and others (Score:2)
VeriSign will be happy to do just that. They own ID names, a company that specializes in DNS name management. They know the rules for registration in every single TLD, wether qualification is required, forms of payment etc.
They typically handle large accounts and manage all the domain names for a company through a single point of contact. That makes sure that a name does not get dropped because nobody remembered to pay the bill and the email address of the technical contact is bouncing.
In addition they will even email you the minute a new TLD is created (rare) or (more common) an existing TLD changes its rules so that qualifications are no longer required before registration. The trend has been for regulations to be relaxed since checking rules takes time and costs money.
The per domain charge is low. But the number of tlds is getting on for 200 and many compaines have multiple brands. There is also a trend toward registering xyzsucks.com, xyzreallysucks.com xyzarenazis etc. Its like buying floor tiles, the charge per tile can be small but when you buy a room full you end up signing a big check.
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:2)
60 days is a ridiculously short time since many commercial enterprises plan major marketing campaigns months or years in advance. If I am spending $100K on canvasing opinions of six potential product names I think I am doing enough to justify registration in any sane system. However I am not about to go and prove it.
Any system that relies on human judgement is going to end in lawsuits or the rule being ignored. Or most likely as has happened in several country TLDs lawsuits being filled and the rules being dropped.
It is simply not economic for registrars to work for $35 per name under the rules proposed. I don't think people want to pay $200+ for initial registration.
Re:The Problem isn't going to be fixed this way. (Score:2)
Untrue, I am not a US citizen and have no plans to become one. I have lived in four countries so far.
The problems you describe are not what the DNS is designed to solve. DNS is not a yellow pages.
Re:The Problem isn't going to be fixed this way. (Score:5)
Fact is that the national TLDs are more of a problem than a solution. Most companies have global aspirations. That is why nobody wanted the OSI names that started C=US, what does a company like Nokia put there? Many companies do not want to introduce parochial national issues into their names.
I buy a burger from McDonalds, not McDonalds.US. Even products that are linked to very specific countries such as sports cars are global brands. Everyone knows that no Jaguar is ever going to be built outside the UK and no Ferrari is ever going to be built outside Italy (except for certain F1 machines :-). Even so Ferrari and Jaguar are world brands, not national brands and are managed accordingly.
There is certainly a case for a new directory infrastructure. Folk who want to rip up DNS to build it need to take some reality pills though. Fact is that DNS is the ASCII of the Internet, you might like to change it but you ain't going to.
New directory systems are going to come along. Names and keywords in those systems may well become valuable as the DNS names have. However they will be supplemental, not replacements.
Lots of companies have started directory schemes, most fail. Even the companies 'selling' names into spurious DNS spaces only they and about six other people resolve through have seen revenues shrivel.
To establish a new name space a company is likely to have to meet the following criteria.
Be a significant Internet player (we are talking Microsoft, VeriSign, Cisco level here, large positive cash flow, millions of customers not CMGI or Idealab! startups).
The names must be useable by hundreds of millions of users.
Offer names on a uniform, non discriminatory basis. This means that the registrar does not cherry pick the best names and sell them at vast rents.
Names must be offered on a freehold basis. Many directories try to rent names. So I spend $20 million to advertise a name and you raise the price on me...
Names must be usefull to the end user. Yahoo is no longer any use to me, I no longer find what I want, I find an idiot advertiser that paid Yahoo. If I type in Microsoft it has to take me to Microsoft, not a MSFT hate site. If I type in About Microsoft I get those.
On the TLD side proper, one solution is to simply go to a flat structure. There is no technical reason why the root could not have ten million names in it. The dotcom zone already has that number of entries and works just fine. The engineering required to make it work just fine is non-trivial. But if the world wants to type in www.cnn. or www.google. and have it work there is no technical reason. VeriSign would just love to run it for $6 per name the same price as dotcom.
Re:None of this would happen if Jon Postel was ali (Score:5)
The Spirit (Score:4)
Why would the banning of TLD make that much of difference aside from the ease of use for the web. When you goto whitehouse.com you obviously know that it is not the offical site for the White House. Ease of use is the only logical reason for limiting of use of TLD's. With the downturn of the current
--- My Karma is bigger than your...
------ This sentence no verb
Re:tagged domains (Score:3)
Only one combination of characters will likely be used, but since the encoding etc. isn't finalized, they don't want people to speculate in, and more importantly don't want registrars to start offering, domains based on a pure gamble that the encoding won't change.
People are complaining about this? (Score:5)
ICANN already owns all the single-digit domains, and the double-digit domains are probably all held by cybersquatters, so I just don't see this as something to be outraged about.
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Re:1 and 2 letter names (Score:5)
Possible explanation: New countries are popping up all the time. Are only countries which exist in the 1990's (or whenever) allowed to have their own domain?
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Re:Remedy (Score:4)
Wish I'd thought of it when the internet was still relatively young..
the way it is (Score:5)
We may live in democracies, but that is only true for a few days every four years.(barely--witness the American Presidential "elections")
The rest of the time capitalism wins the day, and money greases the wheels of the gears that make it possible to hire (some) of us at inflated salaries.
The Internet no longer belongs to the long-haired phone-phreakers of the days of yore. That is why they *privatized* Internic, because the gov't could no longer subsidize the beast.
We know that webpages and email aren't the internet and that it so much more, which is why we get in a snit about shit pulled by the corporations, but explain that to the majority of users. Napster is about as close as most of them will ever come to realizing the potential of the Internet, and they are more concerned about getting free music. Welcome to the Hive.
(grumble) I must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed today..
Re:1 and 2 letter names (Score:3)
More seriously, there are also big associations with something like 'X'. Would MS, Apple or even good old unix hackers want .x for X-Box, OS X, X Windows, the X-files and so on.
There's also all things like TV (television or transvestites), TG (transgender), cd maybe for record shops, pc for computer shops, ff for us Final Fantasy buffs ;0). Frankly as long as you're not screwing with a whole country's TLD what's the point in not allowing us to use them? I now want the w.w domain, I think it'd be really cool, why should some group of boring people stop me using whatever name I want?
And, OT, why is that a small cabel of (US I believe) people control a medium that is totally global? Then again, what's new...
TLDs are names. (Score:4)
It's as if saying you can't own your own name.. after all, it is your right, isn't it?
Re:Power Imbalance (Score:2)
Since it's impossible for someone to use someone else's TLD (website cracking notwithstanding), then perhaps this logic should be applied to your proposal.
Power Imbalance (Score:5)
Either way, W's campaign had to sacrifice at least some resources on their part to do this. Those that ordinarily might have bought up these names, other than Gore's campaign staffers at least had the opportunity to do so. Under this proposal, no such equalizing system exists. It's preordained that the powerful will not be "tampered" with.
Domain Names (Score:5)
Re:1 and 2 letter names (Score:2)
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.