[comments-wgb] On the Sunrise Proposal

[Craig Simon <cls@flywheel.com>]

There has been a thread on the Internic's domain-policy list about the so-called
"Sunrise+20" proposal. I intervened in an exchange between Michael Graham and
Richard Sexton to offer my own concept of a better approach. At the suggestion
of another member of that list, I'm reposting my comment here.


Michael Graham wrote:
>
> Richard Sexton Wrote:
>
> <"A more unfair system would be difficult to imagine."
>
> Richard:
>
> Can you propose a fairer system?  Or do you believe in the landrush "first come, first served" model?  And if so, can you explain how this would be fairer to: (1) trademark owners, (2) domain name speculators, (3) Internet browsers, and (4)  consumers?



Craig Simon's comment follows:

I would consider the deployment of the proposed sunrise policy a surprisngly bad
outcome of the DNS Wars. Such a massive pre-emptive grant of domain names would
be an unfair recapitulation and amplification of the contemporary advertising
power of a few large corporations in the Internet's address space (as if some
firm's otherwise fleeting famosity could be effectively reified forever).

But TM holders (and IP owners in general) do encounter special problems because
of the Internet's growing ubiquity, and it is appropriate to address those
problems as a matter of practical fairness and political reality.

Working to improve the collection of reliable contact information for domain
name registrants would have been a more reasonable approach for the TM community
to take. An additonal effort to develop uniform processes for demonstrating and
dealing with infringement might have followed from that approach. But leveraging
the DNS to provide such wholesale pre-emptive power to a specific class of TM
holders makes the Internet into a boon for them, while disregarding the needs of
law abiding new registrants who are looking for suitably short and memorable
names.