RE: Suggestions (Re: [wg-c] Schwimmer Post From Last Week )

["Sportack, Mark A, CSCIO" <msportack@att.com>]

Mark Langston, 

I agree with your assessment of chartered TLDs, and firmly believe that they
represent an excellent way to tap the vast potential of the Internet's
namespace. I would be willing to further explore the notion of chartered
TLDs, as well as any procedures/mechanisms/policies that may be necessary to
ensure the TLD's user community is consistent with its charter. I welcome
your input on this matter as I believe it holds substantial potential. 

However, I think it might be beneficial to you if I explained the dilemma
that big companies are in wrt namespace expansion. Contrary to your
suggestion, big companies (AT&T, at least!) aren't interested in
monopolizing their trademarks/names/etc. in every single TLD that is
created. They may engage in such activity, but only for defensive purposes.
For example, in a recent exercise, I uncovered more than a dozen instances
of SLD/TLDs that constituted trademark infringement against AT&T's name and
brands. All of these instances involved individual people/small companies
that were not affiliated with AT&T using either the name, brands, or other
forms of obvious AT&T-owned intellectual property for their own purposes.
Some of these names resolved to porno sites, others to on-line gambling, and
one even resolved to a banner offering the name for sale. None of these
sites were affiliated with AT&T, nor enhanced AT&T's brand image or
reputation. AT&T must defend itself against such abusive and illicit uses of
its name/brands. Other trademark holders experience similar problems. Many
companies, in the absence of a better alternative, simply register their
name in every available namespace to preclude such abuses. Thus, I submit
for your approval, that big companies do, indeed, register redundant domain
names across different TLDs. However, they do so to protect their brands
from an all-too-familiar pattern of abuse. 

Also, I'm not certain I understand your claim about "private" TLDs. To
continue your analogy, if porsche registered cars.porsche, then one could
argue that .porsche is a private TLD. I mean, it wouldn't make much sense
for any other auto maker to register within that TLD, so it must be private.
Right? Perhaps you meant SLD... 

Mark Sportack 

> While I still think the idea of chartered TLDs is a viable one, I'd like
> to make one suggestion:  For those groups that have specific TLDs 
> allocated for them, they may not cross-register their SLD in another
> TLD.
> 
> For example, porsche.com, the car manufacturer, can not register
> porsche.wind, porsche.space, or any other SLD that is not in an
> explicity commercial or trade/famous mark-related TLD.
> 
> The reasoning for the suggestion is a simple one:  Without such
> protections,
> the big companies get their own 'private' TLDs, *and* they get to run 
> roughshod over every other TLD in existence.  If they are to be given
> the concession of their own sandbox, it'd only be fair to take measures
> to ensure they stay out of everyone else's.
> 
> In short, if we're to create chartered TLDs to help expand available
> namespace, then we must take steps to ensure trade and famous marks don't
> simply register all variants of their marks in all new chartered TLDs,
> thus creating X number of new .com spaces, in essence.
> 
> 
> I'd also, personally like to see one or more chartered TLDs in which
> transfer or resale of the SLD by the registrant is forbidden.  This
> would further curb the practice of companies buying large sets of
> TLDs in bulk with an eye to reselling them at a higher price.
> In these instances, the contract would act as a "no-sublet" lease.
> The domain name goes back into the free pool when the lease expires,
> and is otherwise non-transferrable.
> 
> -- 
> Mark C. Langston
> mark@bitshift.org
> Systems Admin
> San Jose, CA