Re: [wg-c] registry contracts

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sun, Nov 21, 1999 at 10:32:06PM -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:
>> Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
>> That is, there is a
>> structural character of the market that forces TM owners to plunk
>> down their cash every time a new gTLD comes on line.
> 
>I think everyone realizes that if that is all new gTLDs accomplish, that there
>is no point to new TLDs. That is the real basis of why I am critical of the
>6-10 consensus. If 6-10 is one step toward 500 or 1000 or 10000, it's OK. If
>it's the end point, the whole exercise will be fairly pointless, because most
>existing domain owners (not just TM holders) will just register the same names
>in the new ones.

That is not true.  Large TM holders will register in new domains,
yes.  Small TM holders and others won't.  For example, I have
registered songbird.com and songbird.net, but I have not registered
songbird.org, and I wouldn't bother to register songbird.firm,
songbird.shop, songbird.biz, songbird.nom, etc.  So the addition of
new gTLDs will result in a large number new names being available,
even if several hundred thousand names are either snapped up very
quickly, or are excluded through some kind of exclusion list.  

In other words, the exercise has value independent of the long range 
prospects. 

>> It may be true that there is an utopian end point somewhere upwards of 500
>> or 1000 gTLDs where all this is no longer an issue, somehow --a point where
>> TM owners give up defending their marks at the SLD level, as they
>> essentially do now at the 3LD level.
> 
>The idea that TM owners need to "defend their marks" in a namespace that is
>virtually limitless is the kind of anachronistic thinking that led to efforts
>to ban the VCR. When there are 100 new TLDs, what exactly is the value of
>cybersquatting?

As I said, utopian end point.  Adding new gTLDs will increase the
number of cybersquatters in the short term.  A UDRP will decrease the
cost involved in dealing with them, but it won't eliminate them. 

Moreover, implicit to your argument is the assumption that the gTLDs 
involved are featureless and all equally popular.  Adding 100 new 
gTLDs, only 6 of which are significantly popular, is from a TM point 
of view, about the same as adding the 6 popular ones alone.  In 
fact, we have this situation right now -- one wildly popular name, 
and 240 substantially less popular names.  TM owners concentrate on 
the popular names.

> I have often noted the arbitrariness of a policy that says
> http://www.company.com
> is illegal and immoral, but which allows anyone to advertise
> http://www.myname.com/company or
> http://company.myname.com/.
> All three of those names look pretty much the same in a bookmark or search
> engine hit list, and all three of them perform exactly the same function
> (locate a web page). If TM owners are not threatened by the latter they are
> not threatened by the former.

http://www.company.com is important and the others aren't because
that is the current perception by the majority of participating
humans.  You label this as "arbitrary", but by that same reasoning,
the value of money is arbitrary -- if people everywhere decided not
to use money, it would be worthless...maybe the value of money is 
arbitrary, but it has effects in the real world.  Likewise, the 
perception that http://www.company.com is important has concrete 
effects.

TM interests don't care about the expansion of the TLD space per se
-- they care about areas of the name space that are popular and
visible and that have, therefore, significance in terms of
publicizing TMs.  TM owners probably wouldn't be concerned about
cybersquatters in .sstebz, but they would worry about cybersquatters
in .web or .biz. 

[...]

>> But reaching that glorious equilibrium point (which may indeed be at a more
>> desireable lower energy level than our current state) still requires
>> climbing a difficult hill of expense and legal and political battles to make
>> the transition.
> 
> How so? I don't get it. The sooner we get it over with, the better.

By that reasoning, all people who believe they will go to heaven 
should immediately commit suicide.

To tell you the truth, I don't understand how you can not get it. 
From a purely technical point of view it is possible to be
permanently locked in to a local minimum -- that's why we have lakes 
in mountains, far from the ultimate equilibrium of the sea.  

TM interests may very well agree with you about the characteristics
that would obtain in the utopian bye and bye, but the question is
what would it cost them to get there?

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain