[wg-b] STRAW VOTE - QUESTION 0

[Judith Oppenheimer <joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com>]

I vote for option B.  No safeguards are necessary.

The Federal Communications Commission has ruled that "... [trademark]
issues
properly should be addressed by the courts under the trademark
protection 
and unfair competition laws ... " FCC CC Docket No. 95-155 Toll Free
Service Access Codes ) , FOURTH REPORT AND ORDER AND MEMORANDUM  OPINION
AND
ORDER , Adopted: March 27, 1998 Released: March 31, 1998, Para 7.

Therefore, a toll free vanity number that is in trademark dispute can
only be
canceled, transferred, or denied portability, by a court order:  not by
the FCC
or a carrier or RespOrg.

No doubt the Commission was influenced at least in part, by the obvious
conflict
of interest inherent in the fact that carriers and RespOrgs, themselves
end
users of toll free numbers, compete with 'consuming public' end users
for vanity
numbers ...

I agree that the 'consuming public' needs protection:  the protection of
the
courts.  It is entitled to have *its* domain name rights upheld by the
courts 
under the trademark protection and unfair competition laws.

I vote for option B.  No safeguards are necessary.

Judith

"Michael D. Palage" wrote:

> To date I have received 12 votes out of the 50 participants included on the
> list in regard to Question 0 - see ballot below:
>
> When casting your vote, please put the following text in the subject field:
> STRAW VOTE - QUESTION 0
> In the body of the e-mail please select one of the following three options:
>
> Option A: Some types of safeguards (to be determined) need to be implemented
> to protect famous trademark owners and the consuming public;
>
> Option B: No safeguards are necessary
>
> Option C: I elect to abstain
>
> FORMULATION OF QUESTIONS
> I agree that the formulation of certain questions is crucial. In this case
> however, I believe that a thumbs up or thumbs down approval was the best
> option.  I believe the lawyers participating in this list, myself included,
> are well adept in viewing issues in every shade of gray possible. I believe
> the discussions on the list to date are amble proof that there is a lot of
> gray to deal with - but sometimes a yes or no answer is the best indicator
> of consensus or the lack thereof.
>
> With regard to the Votebot:
> I am not inventing a Votebot. I am taking the existing one that CORE has
> used and putting it on DNSO's boxes. Could you image the conspiracy
> arguments if substantive issues were being conducted outside the scope of
> DNSO oversight. The delays have been that the DNSO people similar to
> Elizabeth and myself have full-time jobs. ICANN related works as co-chair
> and secretariat of the registrar constituency already consumes an inordinate
> amount of my time. There are only 24 hours in the day and my 10 week old son
> needs to know that he has a father :)
>
> Mike
>
> Exercise your right to vote.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:   Harald Tveit Alvestrand [mailto:Harald@Alvestrand.no]
> Sent:   Thursday, September 30, 1999 5:06 PM
> To:     mpalage@infonetworks.com; wg-b@dnso.org
> Subject:        Re: [wg-b] Definition of Consensus & First Vote
>
> Two questions about the votebot system:
>
> 1) Why are you inventing a new one, rather than using one of the hundreds
> that
>     have been written over the years?
> 2) On substantive issues (like Question 0), the formulation of the questions
>     are of terrible importance. How do we indicate that we don't think the
>     formulation is good enough?
>
> In this particular case, the option I'd like to vote for is
>
> b) No protection needs to be implemented BY ICANN OR THE REGISTRY/REGISTRAR
>     SYSTEMS.
>
> This is because I believe that the UDRP and courts of law give the
> necessary and sufficient protection.
>
>                         Harald A
>
> --
> Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
> Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no

--
Judith Oppenheimer, 1 800 The Expert, 212 684-7210
mailto:joppenheimer@icbtollfree.com
Publisher of ICB Toll Free News: http://icbtollfree.com
Publisher of WhoSells800.com: http://whosells800.com
Moderator TOLLFREE-L: http://www.egroups.com/group/tollfree-l/info.html
President of ICB Consultancy: http://JudithOppenheimer.com