[wg-c] Excellent suggestion from slashdot -- apparently not in 10-23 report

[megacz@cmu.edu]

Forgive me if this is a FAQ; I'm new to the WG.

I can't take credit for what follows; I saw it on a slashdot.org
comment, but the comment was moderated WAY down, so very few people
probably read it.

Why not permit an unlimited number of TLD's, on the condition that
nobody can *own* a TLD. Hence I can buy smith.family (and implicitly,
*.smith.family), but NOT *.family. I would be able to do this even if
nobody else had ever registered a name under the family TLD.

The nice part is that it brings the trademark dispute back into proper
focus. Apple computer does NOT have a god-given right to everything
with the word "Apple" on it -- they have a right to everything with
the word "Apple" on it WITHIN THE CONTEXT of the personal computer
industry. Hence, apple.computers would obviously belong to Mr. Jobs'
company, while apple.landscaping would belong to the guy down the
street who will redo your front yard. I'm not suggesting a new dispute
resolution process; just a namespace change that would make dispute
resolution infinitely simpler. AFAIK no other solution breaks down
trademarks *by industry*, as the trademark law explicitly states (or
if they do, they allow for a finite number of industries, which can
become cumbersome in the future).

I dunno, I saw a lot of elegance in it. I read the 10-23 WG-C report,
and Prop. B seems to come *close* to this, but doesn't step out and
overtly state the fact that individuals could [implicitly] create new
TLD's and that a TLD can't be *owned*.

Is this a FAQ, an idea currently being considered, or a new concept on
this list? If there are any known problems with it, what are they?

  - aj

-- 
"Nobody has any 'Rights'. We are entitled only to Liberties"
Adam Megacz <megacz@cmu.edu> -- for current phone/postal, see
http://www.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/finger?q=megacz@andrew.cmu.edu