RE: [wg-b] .UNION Top-level domain name

["Cade,Marilyn S - LGA" <mcade@att.com>]

May be a naive question, but are CWA, IBEW, et al, asking for a .union? If
so, what are their thoughts? Marilyn Cade

-----Original Message-----
From: John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D. [mailto:john@johnberryhill.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 2:04 PM
To: mpalage@infonetworks.com
Cc: wg-b@dnso.org
Subject: Re: [wg-b] .UNION Top-level domain name



From: Michael D. Palage <mpalage@infonetworks.com>
To: Wg-B@Dnso. Org <wg-b@dnso.org>

> Perhaps the trademark community could comment on this issue, but I do not
> believe that they would have a big concern with .UNION as long as
> registrants were properly screened and they did not try to sell the domain
> name back to them at inflated prices or sell counterfeit goods on their
> site, but maybe I am wrong. If the trademark community could offer some
> insight on this proposed chartered top-level it would be much appreciated.

Right, then one just provides a link from the .union site, or even a framed
page, to a commercial site located elsewhere.

The .union proposal, with the inherent assumption that there is a one-to-one
correspondence between a company and a union, is as simplistic as the
underlying assumption that there is a single trademark holder that may have
an interest in a second-level domain name.

Take "nike.union" for example.  How many different unions are represented in
the nike labor force?  One?  Hardly.  They've got Teamsters and electrical
workers and carpenters and who knows what else working for them.  There
isn't a "nike" union.  So the result is that you merely open up a new battle
ground between parties who believe they are entitled to some exclusive and
special right to a short domain name.

The "narrow technical" solution to any perceived problem over conflicts
involving SLDs is to create a large number of TLDs so that a given SLD can
be reflected in more than three ways.  Period.  Any other considerations are
legal or political, not technical, and thus beyond the scope of ICANN's
charter.  We have courts and politicians for solving the former two
categories of problems, and there is no reason to duplicate their efforts.

John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D.
"trademark community" member
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania