Re: [wg-b] How would .fame work?

[Ellen Rony <erony@marin.k12.ca.us>]

Martin Schwimmer wrote:

>OK,  Xerox maintains xerox.com and xerox.fame.  Then .firm is opened up and
>anybody can obtain xerox.firm.  How is the existence of .fame a form of
>protection for Xerox?

Would you ask the same question of there were a .LAW and someone wanted to
register XEROX.LAW (perhaps for a compendium of cases about copyright,
pardon my pun)?   A worldwide exclusion across all TLDs might lead to the
demands for embedded character string exclusions as well, for example
XEROXART.COM or PENTIUMSONDEMAND.COM.  It's a slippery slope.

I think companies that have coined, fanciful words which have been branded
worldwide have special merit;  I think that should be one requirement for
determining famosity--that the name be original, invented by the owner of
the mark.  Xerox, Pentium, Viagra, Rolex would be meaningless character
strings without the substantial investment of the corporate bodies behind
those invented words.  {eople would need to be educated to look in .FAME or
.FAM for the original, famous names and would be assured that these were
not imposters, pornographers or pretenders to the throne.

Experience has shown that it is difficult to maintain the integrity of a
TLD intended for a specific purpose, as we have seen in the erosion of
differentiation between .COM. NET and ORG. (The actress Jane Seymour hangs
her commercial hat at JANESEYMOUR.NET.)  However, registrants in .TMK (only
for registered trademark owners) or .FAM (only for those marks deemed
famous) would go through some stringent vetting process (certified copy of
trademark registration; review  by a panel....) so that special purpose TLD
would be able to retain its definition..   Conceptially, the registry of
.FAM or .FAME would need to brand the tld as the place where the
internationally elite famous marks reside.


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Ellen Rony                         ____             The Domain Name Handbook
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