[ga] .coop Brand Safe program for IP protection

[Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>]

Dear all,

Bret Fausett has already mentioned it at http://icann.blog.us:

>The .coop domain, which opened registration on January 30, is the 
>first sponsored TLD to offer an intellectual property protection 
>program for entities that do not meet domain eligibility criteria. 
(http://www.coop/news/latest_news.asp?id=37)

So the .coop registry wants to protect intellectual property
owners from entities that *meet* the .coop eligibility criteria?
(Cybersquatters cooperatives based on the principles of self-help, 
self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity?!)

 From the original .coop application:
>E5.3. What registration practices will be employed to minimize abusive 
>registrations?
>
>The restrictions on approval of registration described in Section III below 
>[registrations restricted to cooperatives] and the policies discussed 
>in Section E5.1 above [service agreement including UDRP] will guard against 
>abusive registrations.
(http://www.icann.org/tlds/co-op1/NCBA%20Description%20of%20TLD%20Policies.htm)

Now, it sounds like this:
>Under Brand Safe, for US $2,000, any corporation or individual can apply to 
>the dotCoop registry to reserve their trademarks, service marks and brand 
>names, and block them from registration by other entities for five years. 
>Applicants can protect trade names, variations of those names, and recognized 
>and registered trade and service marks. But they will not be able to activate 
>them for use on the Internet. 
(http://www.coop/news/latest_news.asp?id=37 again)

This looks detrimental to intellectual property owners (since
US$ 2000 per trademark or variation is close to a rip-off) and 
all others (since this makes the distinction between sponsored--
restricted and unsponsored TLDs somewhat pointless). 

Best regards,
/// Alexander

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