Re: [wg-b] www.bye-bye-aol.com

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

A lot of people seem to think that clever algorithms or policies will allow us
to avoid these problems, literally to "engineer" them out of existence.

I would respectfully suggest that we can _never_ avoid making trade-offs
between political values as fundamental as free speech and intellectual
property by the crude mechanism of domain name assignment policy. There will be
no "bullet proof" policies. There will always be a need for litigation, and the
fundamental trade-offs will always be resolved through litigation.

I think it is dangerous for us to proceed under any other assumption.
--MM

Jeff Shrewsbury Info Avenue wrote:

> A classic example of how a political or commercial statement can be
> interwoven into a domain name alongside a famous trademark. The domain name
> world is in for many, many more of these -- good and bad. Unless we can
> forge a bullet-proof policy that protects free speech AND at the same time
> curtails abusive behavior, we're going to have years and years of
> litigation and stress over these issues.
>
> I wonder what AOL's team of lawyers say about this.
>
> Jeff Shrewsbury
> Info Avenue