Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed

[Rick H Wesson <wessorh@ar.com>]

John,

a simple constraint for gTLD my be that they are *not* trademarkable for 
the purpose of being a gTLD.

it might narrow the field a bit.

-rick

On Wed, 22 Mar 100, John Charles Broomfield wrote:

> 
> > Selecting names before selecting registries is putting the cart well before
> > the horse.
> 
> I actually feel its just as bad to do it the other way around. In fact I
> feel that it is two carts or two horses (depending how you look at it). In
> other words, I fail to see this obligatory tie in between the registry
> operator and the TLD.
> 
> > What if a name selected is .ATT?
> > What if AT&T wants to run .ATT but it's not selected?
> 
> That's easy: so as to avoid that tie-in between registry operator and TLD,
> no combination of characters that make up enforceable trademarks should be
> allowed at this stage. We are after all talking about gTLDs where the "g"
> stands for generic. We are NOT talking about creating TLDs which are the
> registered trademarks of companies, are we?
> I'm sure that ".ibm", ".adidas", ".linux", ".toyota", ".pepsi" etc would be
> great TLDs from the point of view of their respective owners, but I can't
> quite see the usefulness to the rest of the 'net for them. Any TLD selected
> should have a period *before* becoming operational where any company that
> thinks it is entitled to it could make that claim so as to eliminate it from
> the list to avoid the dilution of that particular companies trademark.
> Now, I know the claim to fame of IOD that they state that ".web" is a
> trademark of theirs, but then if it *IS* a trademark, it can't be a gTLD (by
> definition) as it is not a generic (generics can't be trademarked). So,
> either it is generic (in which case the IOD trademark doesn't apply), or it
> is an IOD trademark (in which case it is not generic, and we can safely
> forget about it for the time being). Can't have it both ways I'm afraid.
> 
> > What if the names selected are .u4x, .hhrhr, and .w83hjf?
> 
> I have yet to see *any* list of TLDs from *any* camp to come up with a list
> along those lines. If they did, they would be thrown straight back. What if
> the sky falls on our heads tomorrow? 
> 
> > The middle-road solution is to set down objective criteria that a registry
> > must meet (much like was done for registrars), and accept applications
> > based upon that criteria.
> 
> Ok up to there.
> 
> > Each application will also contain the single TLD
> > that the applying registry wishes to run, based on their business plan and
> > marketing data.
> 
> I fail to see the need, interest or advantage to the internet community at
> large to tie these two things together. I can perfectly see where you're
> coming from, which is that you feel that ".web" if inserted in the root
> would be an instant winner (I feel that way too), and that you want to
> somehow tie it up to IOD, but (as stated) I see neither need, interest or
> advantage to the internet in doing so (tieing ".web" to IOD I mean).
> 
> Yours, John Broomfield.
>