Master Of Your Domain

ICANN has been in the news quite a bit recently. Although new TLD's have been in the works for more than five years now, ICANN has given in to the lobbying of its patron mega-corps and stated that no new TLD's would be created unless trademark holders got first dibs on them. So much for a personal TLD exempt from trademark considerations... ICANN is currently pushing its At-Large Membership, which everyone should join, even though the system has been carefully rigged so that the public cannot make meaningful changes in the composition of ICANN's Board. All these and more will be discussed in their Cairo meeting, which will be Webcast starting 2 a.m. EST on March 8.

Comments

Finally, some common sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'm about to say is heretical, so it'll surely be moderated into oblivion. Oh, well. People have a right to hear the truth anyway, even if they don't like how it sounds.

Yes, we all know the government created the Net. Fine, I'm glad. But so what? If the Internet had not been "exploited" and "taken over" by businesses, it would still be a useless boondoggle. I'm sorry, but there's no justification for spending tax dollars to provide scientific researchers and college undergraduates with alt.flame. As it turns out, the Net could grow into a lot more than that, and we have far-sighted civil servants like Larry Taylor at ARPA in the 1960's (and many others since that time) to thank for keeping it alive until it could pay for itself.

But now it can pay for itself. This boom we're in may have been planted by ARPA, but it was watered and cared for by businesses, and big ones at that. It's them we have to thank for the fact that the Internet is not a useless parasitic drain on public funds. They didn't create the Net, but without them we wouldn't want the Net.

So should they now get special consideration? Should we pause just for a moment and question our compulsion to bite the hand that feeds us? All those who work for a living, raise your hands. Thank you.

Trademark holders go first. You can register www.microsoft.goatse.cx afterwards.

Re:Finally, some common sense.

[Bad Mojo]

"They didn't create the Net, but without them we wouldn't want the Net."

Not true. I wanted the net back when companies didn't make it possible. As a matter of fact, lots of people wanted it back then. After Oct 31st, 1994 (I think), I wasn't so sure I wanted it.

"So should they now get special consideration? Should we pause just for a moment and question our compulsion to bite the hand that feeds us? All those who work for a living, raise your hands. Thank you."

You are right. Since I pay to access the net everyday, I should get special consideration. *I* gave my money to those companies for MY sake, not for their ability to get what they want. I gave them money, they supported OUR network. The transaction is complete, they are not owed a damn thing. If we didn't want the net, those companies would have ever spent a nickle to run a damn thing.

Without US, they wouldn't want the Net.

Bad Mojo

Re:Finally, some common sense.

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Businesses didn't build the streets, but we use streets to go to the office. Businesses also create wealth which is taxed which is used to pay for the streets. Therefore, Business Interests should trump all other concerns. If the Company decides that my house would be a convenient location for them, they should, by right of their ominous size and wealth, be entitled to my house. I should thank them as they drive me out of my house.

All new subdivisions should be zoned for commercial interests. Residential developement should occur only after businesses have declined to take advantage new developments.

Free speech was nice 200 years ago, but the Companies are much larger now and they often find this "free speech" used against them to publicize boycotts and the like. Consumer advocacy should be outlawed because no one is a bigger advocate of the consumer than the Companies.

There should be no notion of balance in public policy. Just because we *could* create TLDs for non-commercial interests (personal home pages, free software, consumer advocacy, etc), doesn't mean we *should*. We must seek to make sure that Business Interests are catered to at every corner to show our debt to the Companies.

Common Sense?

[phossie]

...a couple of points here (I will move towards the topic as I go):

1. If the Internet had not been "exploited" and "taken over" by businesses, it would still be a useless boondoggle.

Really? And all the scientific dialog, the ability for university research programs to communicate quickly and effectively - do I even need to go on? - a "useless boondoggle?" Hm. I expect the creation of alt.flame was probably one of the points at which people realized the 'Net had a lot more potential than simply exchanging research data.

2. They didn't create the Net, but without them we wouldn't want the Net.

You are so wrong. We could still be using it to develop open source software, host useless web pages, and pour nice hot bowls of grits down your pants. Come on, now.

3. Here's an interesting question: if I decide that I want to name the street I'm developing something like "Apple Street," should Apple be able to stop me? No. Because while Apple(TM) may be a trademark, apple (or even Apple) is not. Isn't that roughly analagous to this situation? Think about the implications of businesses with plain-language names getting involved here. There are many. There are also many businesses names that are common last names. What if mister Slim buys Slim.ert before the diet company does? is there a problem with that?

nope.

We need restrictions on what TLD you can register.

[Masem]

I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it. We need to say that given the entity that you represent when registering a domain, you are only limited to certain TLDs. Network providers must use .net, anything with strong commercial interest is .com, non-profit organizations are .org, etc. Of those 3, an entity can only qualify into one of them, so there is no overlap.

Of course, one asks how do internation rules come into play. For that, we need to force the use of country codes, then have each country decide the usage of the TLD within that country code. If you are looking for megacorp.com, the browser should be smart enough to start at www.megacorp.com.us if you are in the States, or www.megacorp.co.uk if in britian or so on. Thus, the *true* TLDs are the country codes, then each country can set it's own restrictions, so that the definition of a US non-profit organization does not play into how the UK might decide who gets org.uk domains.

But it all falls down to teaching the public and businesses that those TLDs *are* important in distiquishing between commercial and non-commercial interests. Commercial companies should have absolutely no reason to grab an .org name, and should be prevented from doing so. Thus, trademark dilution due to domain names in a unappropriate TLD become null and void; the TLD indicates that the word is not associated with the commercial business. (Mind you, if the content on the page is libel, that's something different).

Alas, the days when URLs were meant to be invisible to the non-proficent user are long gone.

Rehash of the same old thing

[.@.]

Every time a DNS/ICANN related story comes up, myself and several others post relevant information about how you can get involved, how you can participate, and what you should be doing if you don't like or don't agree with the way these policies are being developed.
Now, here's another story, stating the truth of what I and others have been saying for $DEITY knows how long now.
I'll make this very simple:
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS, GET INVOLVED AND CHANGE IT!
And that doesn't mean joining the ICANN At-Large membership. It means getting involved with the Domain name Service Organization, specifically Working Groups B and C, and working to get rid of business-centric, short-sighted policies before they're enacted. In the end, it all comes down to numbers: Right now, the corporate lawyers and the businesspeople have a stronger lobby within ICANN than the individuals and the end-users do.
Don't be fooled, you will NOT have any impact on policy from the At-Large Membership. The proper venue for activism is within the DNSO working groups.
See this page for the mailing list archives of the working groups, and instructions on how to join. It's as easy as subscribing to a mailing list.
Unless and until you actually get off your ass and do something to change things, you're just going to be pissing in the wind. Slashdot is a wonderful forum, but all of you should be voicing your concerns where they matter, in the Working Groups, instead of here.

TM/IP protection and ICANN

[.@.]

Here's the deal:

As a trademark (or other intellectual property) owner, you are required by US and International law to protect your TM/IP, or lose it. The law clearly and firmly places the burden of policing possible infringements on the TM owner.

This includes the time, effort, and cost involved.

There are existing services that charge a nominal fee to do domain name/trademark infringement searches. Some registrars have this as part of their business model (e.g., look at the links off of http://www.whois.net).

Now, ICANN, via Working Group B (which is stacked full of TM/IP lawyers), wants to shift that burden to the registrars themselves, eliminating that business model, and superceeding US and International trademark/intellectual property law!

The folks from Working Group B have even invaded Working Group C, the WG for the addition of new Top-Level Domains (such as a .com, .net, or .org), and have ramrodded through what is now being accepted as a legitimate proposal that would eliminate the possibility of new TLDs without this shift of cost and burden from the TM holder to the domain name registrar.

In short, the TM holders don't like US and International law placing the burden and cost of protecting their marks on their shoulders, and have found a political venue in which they can get away with shifting this burden onto someone else.

And every single one of you who isn't in there fighting to prevent this is tacitly allowing this to happen.

If this becomes reality, ICANN will have effectively superceded worldwide laws and treaties.

And since the DNSO leading body, the "Names Council", and the ICANN Board of Directors is full of trademark/intellectual property owners and biased business owners, this stands a very good chance of happening. The only way to prevent this is for each and every one of you to GET INVOLVED.

The whole damn thing needs a reorg...

[Millennium]

That's going to be an unpopular one on Slashdot, I know. But the whole DNS system needs a complete and total reorganization. Something which allows for the same flexibility as the current system, but suits the Net itself more...

• Ditch the country codes. All of them. The whole point of the Net is that physical location isn't supposed to matter. It also makes little sense that a US site doesn't have to use the .us code, but all other countries have to use theirs.
  
  Besides this, country codes only rarely give any indication of the site's purpose, which a domain name should be restricted to doing. Take, for example, my old high school's URL; I think it ran http://flinthill.ind.k12.va.us or something like that. This is a classic example of too much information in a name (Flint Hill, Independent school, K-12, Virginia, US), leading to something a lot longer than a domain name should be. A simple http://www.flinthill.edu would have been better (and isn't taken either).
  
• Obviously, with the country codes gone, some new TLD's will have to be implemented. I'd propose the following, just as a start...
  • .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, .mil - same as before.
    
  • .sum - personal Web pages. Why "sum," you ask? It's Latin for "I am," and it fits nicely into three letters.
    
  • .art - Sites dedicated to some art or another. The official site for a music group is one example.
    
  • .log - Sites dedicated to news. Slashdot is one example.
    
  • .act - Activism sites. These differ from .org sites in several ways, not the least of which is that a .act site actively encourages people to take a stand on one issue or another (PFAW, for example), whereas a .org site does not (PBS).
    
  • .mun - Municipal sites. Differing from a .gov site because of the information they contain. A .gov site tends more towards legislative, historical, and similar information. A .mun site leans towards community events, tourism, etc.
  
  
• Strict controls on domain name registry. As someone else here has pointed out, your choice of TLD is restricted by what sort of entity you represent when registering the domain name. If you represent a commercial interest, you may only buy a .com address, for example. An ISP may only but a .net address. If you represent yourself, you may only buy a .sum address. Note that the etoys/etoy problem would thus be avoided; Etoys gets etoys.com, whereas etoy gets the etoy.art address. There is one way to get multiple TLD's for one entity: if those sites represent different aspects of that entity. Take AT&T, for example. It's mainly a commercial business, so it should take att.com. However, it contains AT&T WorldNet, an ISP, so that aspect of it would take att.net.
  This also gets around trademark issues, because it makes it quite clear when a name is being used for commercial purposes.
  
• Obviously, we need to do something about existing domain names. The only fair thing I can think of to do would be that an entity gets to keep all domain names which fit that entity (for example, an individual gets to keep all .sum addresses, but no others) and is reimbursed for the other domain names for whatever had been paid out that year.

How does this sound to people? The problem is that the current system is too fluid; flexibility has its place but this goes too far. Obviously, more TLD's than these are needed; feel free to contribute more. Just remember that any you add should be thought out such that an entity can obviously fit into only one of these TLD's, or obviously fits into one catecory far better than the rest.