Re: [wg-b] Japanese Sunrise Program

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

John Berryhill's point is important.  If the trademark issue is
presented in the ICANN process as one where a handful of ICANN
participants how the power to destroy businesses or to get the US
Congress to enact really bad legislation, it creates resentments, and
some bitter exchanges on lists.

I think that trademark owners have legitimate concerns about the costs
of maintaining and defending their trademarks in an expanded root, and
the discussion in WG-B were useful to me, in thinking about these
issues.  I would hope that in the comment period for the proposals,
trademark owners would also show some recognition that there is a public
interest in an expanded name space, and that there are legitimate limits
on their rights as owners of trademarks.  Clearly there will be
particular reasons why some of the non-commerical applications will not
fit the mold that the TM lobby is pushing for the .com competitors.
Likewise for some of the restricted commerical domains, particularly
those that are industry specific.  I would hope to see some recognition
of this in the comment period, backing up some of the reasonable
comments I heard in Cairo on this point.

  Jamie



On Sat, 7 Oct 2000, John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D. wrote:
> > >A question I've thought about alot over the past few months is whether the
> > >Internet lends itself to serious debate about deeply felt issues or held
> > >beliefs.
> Not as long as un-named parties are threatening to wreck havoc on the
> registrar databases.  Probably not.  On technical management issues, yes, it
> does that quite well.
> 
> > > The social customs and practices that foster civil behavior
> > >in face-to-face communication are lacking in on-line communications.
> 
> Agreed.  If Rohn Industries had been around to actually speak with Rohn Price
> when they tried to take away his rohn.com domain name, which he uses for a
> religious website, they probably wouldn't have acted the way they did.  It's
> funny, though, that they immediately capitulated when faced with a complaint
> for defamation and fraud.  Somehow they acted much more civilly when it was
> on paper.  Still waiting for them to pay the bill, though...
> 
>