Given that there is always some metaphysical truth in your comments, I read them avidly, although I assume you have a team of contributors drawn from INEG actually covering the vast areas over which you range, as no one man could produce so much so aptly without specialised assistance.
In respect of the debate below, I wonder if one can apply the eminent Professor Mueller's dictum 'I do not understand why a ccTLD should have a privileged, special status in any country. In my view, they are just another registry.' After all, the Holy See has already its own ccTLD (.va) and would probably be limited to a few hundred million registrants, if organised to do so. One might anyway assume such matters should be the least of ICANN's worries now that they have confounded their friends by doing what their enemies want.
'Vatican' is derived, I believe from the Latin for 'hill'. sc:Vâtîcânus (i short, Hor. C. 1.20.7, but lengthened in Juv. and Mart.), a, um, adj. (sc. mons, collis), the Vatican Hill in Rome, on the western bank of the Tiber, Hor. C. 1.20.7; Juv. 6, 344; Fest. p. 379 Müll.; cf. Becker, Antiq. 1, p. 659 sq.; also plur., for the hill and the space around it: montes Vaticani, Cic. Att. 13, 33, 4: campus, id. ib.: ager, id. Agr. 2.35.96: vallis, between the Vatican and the Janiculum, Tac. A. 4, 14: Circus, Plin. 16, 40, 76, § 201: Vaticana (sc. vina), Vatican wine (a very inferior sort), Mart. 6, 92, 3; 10, 45, 5; cf. cadus, id. 1, 19, 2; 12, 48, 14.--Subst.: in Vaticano, Plin. 8, 14, 14, § 37; 16, 44, 87, § 237; 18, 3, 4, § 20: Vaticanus, the divinity presiding over the Vatican, Varr. ap. Gell. 16, 17, 2; Aug. Civ. Dei, 4, 8, 12.
As such one assumes the Vatican wine sellers or cellars will be somewhat affronted if they cannot use their (famous?) mark, known to Martial if not everyone, in the commercial and business domains, preceding the present august occupants by some considerable period. However, as an ingenuous dilettante in these areas, I should be interested to see whether such a mark appertaining historically in part to the Italian wine industry (I hope this can be said with no disrespect to the Holy See) can be suppressed on ground of convention. Presumably Church's Shoes are thinking of changing their name to something more anodyne?
However, one hopes that the work of working group B, lead by the irrepressible Mr Palage will produce some solution to such unpleasant conflicts.
MM
Jeff Williams wrote:
John and all,Looks like another of ICANN's oversight problems, meaning lack thereof.
Typical... We should or can expect this form a rouge ICANN, and a DNSO
that has gone rouge as well... Shame really. I suppose that the Stakeholders
shall also have to be "Confused" by this inconsistency as well, given that the
Catholic Church is involved here...John B. Reynolds wrote:
> One of the things that "seems odd" about this story is that the message from
> NSI that is quoted in the press release is a response to an attempt to
> modify contact information and/or name servers, not a payment attempt.
> Another is that vaticano.org is *not* now registered to the Vatican:
>
> Registrant:
> Antonio Cappella (VATICANO17-DOM)
> Via Prati della Farnesina 43
> Rome, RM 00194
> IT
>
> Domain Name: VATICANO.ORG
>
> Administrative Contact:
> Francesco, De Menna (DMF160) dmf@DMS.IT
> ++39-06-2291650 (FAX) ++39-06-2291650
> Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
> De Menna, Giancarlo (GD3295) dmg@DMS.IT
> ++39-06-2291650 (FAX) ++39-06-2291650
> Billing Contact:
> DM Soft S.r.l. (DS705-ORG) dmsoft@DMS.IT
> ++39-6-2291650
> Fax- ++39-6-2291650
>
> Record last updated on 10-Dec-1999.
> Record created on 10-Dec-1999.
> Database last updated on 10-Jan-2000 13:08:41 EST.
>
> Domain servers in listed order:
>
> NS.DMS.IT 151.4.33.12
> DM1.DMS.IT 151.4.33.9
>
> Compare to:
>
> Registrant:
> Vatican City State, Holy See Secretariatof State (VATICAN4-DOM)
> Cortile del Triangolo
> Vatican City, Vatican City State 00120
> VA
>
> Domain Name: VATICAN.NET
>
> Administrative Contact:
> Zoebelein, Judith [Sister] (JZ146) sjz@VATICAN.VA
> 39-6-69882354
> Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
> Pasquini, Stefano (PS368) pasquini@VATICAN.VA
> +39-06-69882354 (FAX) +39-06-69882067
>
> Record last updated on 25-Nov-1996.
> Record created on 25-Jun-1996.
> Database last updated on 10-Jan-2000 13:08:41 EST.
>
> Domain servers in listed order:
>
> MICHAEL.VATICAN.VA 212.77.0.2
> DNS.IT.NET 151.1.1.1
> NS1.PIPEX.NET 158.43.192.7
> GABRIEL.VATICAN.VA 194.91.153.249
> NS0.PIPEX.NET 158.43.128.8
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-ga@dnso.org [mailto:owner-ga@dnso.org]On Behalf Of Michael
> > Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law
> > Sent: Tuesday, 11 January 2000 11:30
> > To: ga@dnso.org
> > Cc: shollenb@netsol.com
> > Subject: [ga] vaticano.org allegations
> >
> >
> > According to the web page at http://www.rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html,
> > Network solutions spontaneously refused to allow the owners or
> > vaticano.org to re-register the domain, and transferred it to the Vatican.
> > It had been, the web page says, a heretical site.
> >
> > Here's the key allegation (reformatted):
> >
> > "At the expiring of the first year of contract , Network Solutions (the
> > company that sells Internet domain names), prevented 0100101110101101.ORG
> > from renewing the contract of "vaticano.org", which had been regularly
> > bought. Network Solutions refused all the attempts of payment and,
> > immediately upon the expiring of the contract, sold the domain name to a
> > Catholic association in Rome.
> >
> > "> From: Domain Registration Role Account domreg@internic.net
> > > Subject: Re: MODIFY DOMAIN vaticano.org
> > >
> > > Your request for MODIFY DOMAIN vaticano.org. could not be automatically
> > processed.
> > >
> > > Your request has been queued for manual processing. This
> > request will be
> > processed in
> > > accordance with established procedures."
> >
> > There are some things about the story that seem odd, not least the claim
> > that original registration was just for one year (I thought they were
> > always for 2 years?).
> >
> > Nevertheless, I would like to hear Network Solutions' side of the story,
> > please.
> >
> > If it were the case that NetSol spontaneously refuses re-registrations for
> > religious or political reasons, this would of course confirm every worst
> > fear people have had about the DNS being used as a chokepoint to make it
> > more difficult for some ideas to be found on the Internet.
> >
> > NSI knows that, which is why this is so hard to believe.
> >
> > --
> >
> > A. Michael Froomkin | Professor of Law | froomkin@law.tm
> > U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
> > +1 (305) 284-4285 | +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) | http://www.law.tm
> > -->It's warm here.<--
> >
> >Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman INEGroup (Over 95k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
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