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Study of Domain Dispute Resolution System
yooden writes: "Milton Mueller shows in his study that the domain name dispute resolution system applied today has a tendency to reward providers who deliver name transfers (ie. WIPO). While the idea is not new, the study is." Since ICANN is meeting today, in a session with 10 totally unelected directors and 9 elected by business representatives and 0 elected by general internet users, to decide which new TLDs will be implemented and how (to split up the loot), it seems somehow appropriate to review their record of fair and impartial domain name handling over the past few years. Mueller analyzes disputes statistically and comes up with a few smoking guns.
I didn't realize that there were multiple resolution boards, and it was interesting to see that WIPO and NAF were close to 80/20 in "complainant wins" to "respondent wins" cases, whereas eResolutions was closer to 50/50, which, IMO, is a more realistic expectation of a fair system. I also like the idea suggested that the specific board that is used should be decided by the domain name registering company, as opposed to the initiator of the complaint. Yes, that might mean that WIPO and NAF would have no more cases and one or two registrars would be loaded big time, but it shows that there is a problem in consistancy across the current system.
One stat that I wish was cataloged was exactly the types of complaints vs wins and losses. For example, differing "typographical differences" from "trademark words" from "trademark variations" (e.g., "guines.com" vs "guiness.com" vs "guiness-sucks.com"). In addition, a breakdown of how the contested site was being used would be good too, if it was empty or activitely used or otherwise. I would figure the fairness issue would be highlighted strongly here.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
And what was with that company which wanted both ".kids" and ".sex"? That's a blatant case of pedophilia.
.kids and the .sex to be separate. Maybe you could only have .kids after you've had a .sex one. (Cue crappy manpage parodies ad nauseum).
Since a domain name can only have one TLD, I think it's forcing the
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I hate that there is only one domain name system in use today. There is absolutely no competition and so there is absolutely no reason why the powers that be should make things fair.
Then again, this is a case of choices and finding the best balance between ease of use and the good of the users. Having a multitude of domain name systems competing would create confusion over names registered the same on different systems.
Oh well, I personally would like to see multiple DNS's simply because seeing one of anything like this makes me nervous. Also I think that having multiple of them would set some legal precidents that would clean up a lot of stuff.
The only part that I hate is that I guarantee that if someone pushed hard to for widespread acceptance of an alternative DNS, a legal battle would insue and it would not be allowed. We all remember what happened to AlterNIC, right?
Superinconvenient?
No, Newspeak is doubleplusgood!
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
One should be able to register a TLD in the same fashion that one registers any domain. That way I can set up some of my old 386sx systems to handle DNS requests for my new .GOD TLD. I foresee huge demand for this TLD and I'll let you be the judge of what part I'll play in it all. I will say that those who pay to upgrade my 386's are more likely to see the pearly gates swing wide!
Let's see.. these new TLD's belong to nobody. they are ownerless.. who exaclty is giving the ownership to the Domain name registrars? These domain names, espically TLD's have a large amount of value.
So why is is that these companies are getting free product to sell and not being taxed or regulated by someone? (I say let's require 10% of every domain name registered (profit from the registrar's side) is required to be donated to research of internet privacy protection.
But then that would be taking a cash cow by the teats and squeezing harder than the registrars would like.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Message to WIPO & ICANN from WIPO.org.uk (SWIPO.org)
.REG or similar. What you are doing is unlawful.
WIPO & ICANN care nothing for the LAW:
Ask any trademark attorney about the proper use of a trademark. It has to be set apart by special typeface or script. And use "tm" for an unregistered mark and "®" for a registered mark.
The Domain Naming System (DNS) encompasses all words - it is NOT a Trademark System (ask Paul Mockapetris, creator of Domain Name System).
ICANN - this means you cannot have a dispute resolution that does not include a tag - i.e.
Guide to European Competition Law
2. Abuses of dominant position (Article 82)
Article 82 prohibits the abuse of the dominant position of a company which negatively affect the trade between Member States.
2.2. What are the prohibited practices under Article 82?
c) Abuse of intellectual property rights
The mere existence of a patent, trademark or copyright is not sufficient to establish a dominant position.
WIPO - this means you cannot pass on these names, only one may use it, else you are giving trademark a dominant position on the Internet. Many others may have the name trademarked also. Have you not heard of "Unfair Competition" laws? What you are doing is unlawful.
Denny Hammerton (WIPO-SUCKS-COM-DOM)
P.O.Box 1304
Lutz, FL 33548
usDomain Name: WIPO-SUCKS.COM
Administrative Contact:
Denny Hammerton (DH1179-BR)
webmaster@bodyguards.com
Denny Hammerton
P.O.Box 1304
Lutz, FL 33548
us
Phone- 813-995-0120
Fax- 813-995-0120
Technical Contact:
Getadomain Domain Technical Group (GD392-BR) technical@getadomain.com Getadomain
1916 Pike Place #12 PMB 367
Seattle, WA 98101
US
Phone- (206) 329-7900
Fax- (206) 329-7107
Record updated on 2000-08-24.
Record created on 2000-08-24.
Record expires on 2001-08-24.
Database last updated on 2000-11-14 03:42:18 EST.
Domain servers in listed order: NS1.GLOBALDNS.COM
206.253.214.11
NS2.GLOBALDNS.COM
206.253.214.12
The previous information has been obtained either directly from the registrant or a registrar of the domain name other than Network Solutions. Network Solutions, therefore, does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
And the ultimate corp will be the one that controls the browser. That corp will not be beholding to ICANN and can have it's own DNS to find sites registered with it before it checks ICANN's DNS.
...that the internet/web in it's current form was not 'invesnted' by us? Nor did we do much to develop it further. Sure slashdotters would have their fair share of coming up with nifty little tools and gadgets, but who made them main stream? certainly not us. Neither did big-corp. so who did? it's an open secret that the most rapid advancements come from the internet's most profitable line - porn.
.net strategy meeting and vote on the concept. get my drift?
not only do adult site owners have the funds to hire the best brains - they were also the first ones that were willing to pay good chunks of cash to techies so they's come up with better ways to dispense smut over the net to payning audiences.
a sort of the first cyberarms race took place in the adult domain. next were the yahoos and ebays, who started small [and more often with smut funds than most of them admit] came up with something new and grew rapidly. but they only grew rapidly because big-corp suddenly realized what potential the net had and started to shovel cash at innovative small companies.
the dot-com frenzy came much later - two years later to be exact. so most of the cybersquatters had ample time to build decent sites under the domain names they occupied - which in turn, might have affected most WIPO decissions.
if you look at sample WIPO cases, you should foremost check the sites that are under the disputed domains.
most of the time the -sux domains consist of a parody logo and a message board, 300 banner ads and an email address to the webmaster [just in case someone wanted to buy the domain name].
cases in which WIPO decided pro corp despite the fact that the owner of a domain had a legitimate well designed site that served a purpose are rather rare.
of course WIPO can not argue that they will take a site away if it's poorly done, because that would result in a feeding frenzy for lawyers, constitutional experts, etc.
so, while WIPO's arguments most of the time are questionable, the decissions seem to be very much based on the quality of the site that is under a domain, rather than only on the name of the domain.
I can't help myself but respect that as rather fair. i still haven't found a corporation that would have gotten a domain via WIPO that belonged to a legitimate small business operator, who had no intention to profit from registering the domain first.
I can also see why ICANN didn't let the @large nominees vote on the TLD issue. they do have to reach a conclusion somewhat soonish. if the @large guys were voting, they would take years to reach a consensus simply because the @large nominees by definition have to oppose whatever the corp nominees want to ensure their reelection and to show the tech community that they won't bow to big-bad-corp.
it's abit as if you askede linux developers to sit in on M$
so, if you look at things from a non-conspiracy point of view and try [hard] to find underlying motives of people involved, without automatiucally assuming that they are pro-corp and anti-user, then you will more often than not end up with reasonable explanations for their behaviour.
you know, not everyone is out there to take 'our net' away - apart from that - we could just sit down and plan day 'x' when we all pull the plugs on all sytems we have access to. how many newsgroups do you know, where corp managers discuss our conspiracy against them and our plans to bring down the corporate www?
get real, get a life - instal win2k for thrills.
Why should I care to look at a cooking website written in mandarin? If I really want to find it, great, what are the odds I'm going to go looking at recipesinmandarin.com?
At this point, we should be much more concerned with making the internet useful. To be useful, it has to have limits, not arbitrary limits imposed from above, but personal preferences that are designated by individuals. How do we do that?
Easy... Why not have unlimited numbers of DNS services. How hard is it to plug a new DNS Server address in your connection settings? No to mention the fact that browsers can easily be adapted to make it second nature.
If you want to use AOL keywords, great, you sign up with AOL as your DNS. If you want the troll web, perhaps you sign up for goatse.cx dns service. If you want local web names, sign up with your local ISP for DNS service, where shoes.com actually points to the corner shoe store.
Feeling stifled by only having local listings? No problem, you specify your secondary dns service as google.
Sure, a lot od domain speculators lose their asses (what a shame that would be.), and companies actually have to THINK about where they market their company, but at last we could truly have a choice about DNS, instead of complaining constantly that some international body is subject to corporate lobbying power. (Well, duh!)
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
Here is a pretty darn good example of why elected officials are bad. An excerpt from the article on Salon reads:
"Karl Auerbach, a board member-elect of ICANN, said he was worried that the routers controlling the flow of data through the Internet would crash when the new characters are introduced."
I don't know about you, but this is like saying that your radio would crash if it picked up a Korean broadcast. Where oh where do they find these people? Oh wait, he was elected by a vote of the people.
Why not just offer up a position on the board to the top three people graduating from a CS class at a reputable school every year? Then you are bound to get fresh ideas, and you should get people that have half a clue.
Just a thought.
Casca
Why do hospital boards consist of some people that aren't doctors? Why does the library commission consist of some people that have nothing to do with the library?
They do this to give popular insight on a system that would be too closed-minded otherwise.
---
I'm just an ordinary man with nothing to lose.
Of course, they can't even spam correctly. I know these variations have long-since been taken.
On a clear disk you can seek forever
Yes, but where does every hyperlink point to? Slashdot.org. Therefore, navigating to Slashdot.com is pointless.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I liked the group's listing of specific cases (near the end of the study), showing decisions that were apparently incompatible with the official resolution policy.
Rubbing ICANN's nose in badly-followed official doctrine, citing their own chapter and verse, may be effective, or it may just make things worse, though.
WIPO D2000-0054
4(a)iii - Ruling goes beyond ICANN policy, attempting to make secondary markets in generic domain names illegal if the generic term happens to be trademarked. Faced with the absence of any real bad faith, the panelists concocted a "preclusion" doctrine that holds that prior registration of a name constitutes bad faith under 4(b)ii of the policy because it prevents the trademark holder from having the name. Since domain name registrations are by definition exclusive, this could be used to justify bad faith for any name a trademark holder wants.
WIPO D2000-0479
4(a)i - The trademark involved was "Tata & Sons." The panelist stretched the definition of "confusingly similar" well beyond the breaking point.
NAF FA0093763
4(b)i, 4(a)ii - Bad faith finding based on holding that respondent registered name intending to sell it to complainant, despite absence of any evidence of an offer and despite fact that the domain was sold in 1997 to a different party with a bona fide business plan to use the name for email addresses.
WIPO D2000-0996
4(a)i - Bad faith and no rights were proved, but the panelist's finding that the domain name was "confusingly similar" to the trademark "Guinness" is insupportable.
WIPO D2000-0505
4(a)ii, 4(a)iii - Respondent used name for bona fide offering of services but panelist asserted that "some rights are better or more legitimate than others." Panelist also adopted bizarre "preclusion" concept advanced in crew.com to manufacture a bad faith finding.
WIPO D2000-0376
4(b)i - A generic term trademarked by a German company that already had the country-code version of the name. Panelist's decision seems to have been driven mainly by his irritation with the respondent's behavior. Took 4(b)i to new heights of absurdity by holding that failure to respond to an offer to buy the name for $100 proved that a higher price was demanded.
NAF FA0094388 (In post-udrp litigation)
4(a)iii - Another ruling that completely ignored the bad faith requirement of the policy in order to take away a generic domain name from a domain reseller and give it to a trademark holder
[
You can scrap those 65535 Karma points. Just give me one point for each reply I had about my .sig today...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
For the most part domain names are nothing more than a convenience. How ofter do you go to a site based on its domain name? 99.9% of the time, I end up finding out about a site because of a link somewhere, or from a search engine. Sure, a catchy name is nice, but it isn't that big of a deal.
I was at a cafe on Halloween sitting across from a fellow working on a laptop. He eventually made some conversation and informed me that he was a domain name speculator. He had a list of thousands of domain names he had for sale. Most of them were (East) Indian words for sex, and he was selling them for between $500-$5000. He figured that as soon as India joins the information age, all sorts of tycoons are going to want these domain names, and they will be willing to pay big bucks for them.
I had a hard time not laughing out loud at him.
Any person elected is better than none...
Steven V.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
Motor is not a corporate name as far as I know. So, www.quirkcars.com/www.quirkboats.com etc. should do the trick. Now which company was www.quirkmotors.com about anyway?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I think his point is that everyday words are being taken away from people who should legitimately have a right to register them as domains, provided they aren't doing so to enter into competition with a corporation that has obtained a trademark on that word. His example of Penguin the publishing company is a good one. If I were to register penguin.com and sell stuffed penguins, or put up pictures of penguins, or some other such thing, Penguin publishing would likely be able to have the domain taken away from me simply because they own the trademark on the word Penguin. Now, trademarks are normally only valid in connection with a certain business or industry. This is why Apple Computers and Apple Records can coexist. There are some cases though where a trademark becomes sufficiently "famous" that it is considered to transcend all boundaries and nobody but that corporation can use the word in connection with anything forevermore. McDonald's is a good example of this. If my name were John McDonald, and I were to register McDonaldsWebDesign.com, I would likely be sued by the McDonald's Corporation and have the domain taken from me, if past dispute decisions are any guide.
Trademarks were originally created so that companies couldn't compete unfairly with other companies by giving their product the same name, or by taking the name of a well-known brand and trying to cash in on it by associating it with their products or services. It's intended to prevent fraud and consumer confusion. It seems to have gone well beyond that now. Trademark infringement is now being used to squash free speech. Corporations regularly alledge that someone has infringed on a trademark simply by mentioning it in the course of criticizing that corporation. Receiving threatening letters and being faced with an expensive lawsuit (win or lose it will likely be very expensive) is often more than enough to scare people into silence. Even if they know they are in the right, you can look at many cases these days where the trademark owner wins regardless of whether we think they were in the right. The report shows that the overwhelming majority of domain dispute decisions are made in favor of the trademark owner. Corporations also seem to feel that they can trademark everyday words and prevent anyone from using the same words in association with their products, even when the other company or individual are not competing with the trademark owner. US courts have traditionally handled such disputes. But now, when it comes to domain names, we are bound by unaccountable, unelected governing bodies that seem to heavily favor corporate interests.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Interesting point.
Someone you trust is one of us.
You know... this is offtopic, vulgar, and I'm sure someone will manage to be offended by it.
On the other hand, it's also the most lucid and concise description of Lotus Notes that I think I've ever come across.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
well they have - got their arses kicked... remember?
it was the beginning of the end.
after all the confederates where about individual freedom and the union was/is about coporate rights. then - as now...
freeing the slaves was only an addition to get the the undecided states behind the union - some of the union states where still holding slaves well into the civil war.
then as now, american corporations ruled politics and presidents were bought and sold - or shot - if they breached their contracts...
If you have deep pockets, you can defend your self, however if your pockets aren't as deep as "AOL" then you might as well cave in. In order for a lawyer to even consider a response for one of my domain names, I was told it would cost me $25,000.00 and its no gurantee. What am I suppose to do at that point? FYI: In the end I lost because it all came down to them saying I registered the name in "Bad Faith". Since when does freedom of expression of any word or context constitute bad faith. All I did was register the name because it was for a class project. Again, if I had a high powered lawyer to defend myself against AOL, I might of won. I didn't so I lost. Oh well. When will I get appointed to ICANN so I can represent the general public? If we look at who the unelected officials are at ICANN, I bet you will find that they are from one of the top 10 Technology companies....... Is this not conflict of interest or am I blind?
Of course, when others tried to do this, the big companies complained that this would throw the Internet into chaos - presuamably meaning they could not control the assignment of TLDs and thus get first dibs on prime names by knowing first what will be available.
However, if Internet users at large created a new TLD authority and open-source, open-license software that was reliable augmentation to DNS & BIND, then some serious alternative to centralized registry authority could be put forth.
The system could simply allow arbitrary TLDs, presumably bounded by a character limit, and domain names on a first-come, first-serve basis. The system would be distributed in a GNUtella-like fashion, and name conflict resolution would be performed by timestamp comparison.
Of course, this is just one idea, and a preliminary description of it... but there are only three other alternatives: whine uselessly, a class action lawsuit (if some lawyer thinks they can win the case, and in what country?) or form a lobby on behalf of general Internet users to try to change what ICANN is doing...
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
been done / in process:
http://www.opennic.unrated.net
The .net tld was intended for ISPs. In a few cases it's actually used correctly, check out bellsouth.com and bellsouth.net for instance.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I completely agree with this. If there is no elected body, and we blindly put faith into some faceless board of directors, we're basically asking for people to mess with the system. It's clear that the more money you have, the more likely you are to get what you want (I guess that's life though isn't it...) The reason it's so important though is that the Internet is everywhere, all the time, 24-7, and I think if we all use it, we all should have the right to choose who runs it.
---
evil adrian
evil adrian
Unfortunately, I don't even remember his name. Sorry.
The whole TLD thing has been severely tarnished by people who want to make sure people don't get lost in their sites. (So, the TLD problem is indirectly the fault of stupid people...) Really, though, if people used things the way they were meant to, we wouldn't have this problem. Take, for instance, a proper usage of TLD's that I found. At ThinkGeek (who, by the way, have both .org and .com, and maybe .net), they link to a company offering DSL called SpeakEasy. I looked around for a while, and then left. The next day, I decided to follow-up on it, and sat down and typed in "speakeasy.com", fully intending to come up at SpeakEasy's DSL page. Instead, I arrived at "Speakeasy Computing Corporation", and skimmed their page for "DSL". The huge text reading "
(We do NOT provide DSL connections. If you came here looking for help with yours, try contacting Speakeasy.NET)
Speakeasy Computing Corporation is a software firm and has no affiliation with speakeasy.net".
I felt kind of stupid, .net should have been the obvious choice for an ISP. But I gave it some thought, and soon realized that the reason I was so "stupid" was the result of "stupid" people. A few people couldn't figure out .com vs. .org vs. .net, so people registered them all. Then I started to (subconsciously, I suppose) realize that it didn't really matter what I typed in -- .com was the most popular, so I might as well just type that in, right?
I've seen a few posts mentioning that we really need to start eliminating TLD's, and they were usually moderated as either "Flamebate" or "Funny". The fact is, the idea isn't too bad. But I have an alternative idea.
ICANN should require justification of why you deserve a domain. Now, everyone's going to flame me for this, but give it some thought. If RedHat wants to register a domain for their business, they could apply for .com. They could also apply for .org and .net to help confused visitors, but these would be rejected as a waste of domains. Then, I could, in theory, register the "RedHat Fan Club" page as redhat.org. Of course, there are problems with this - I could claim to be the RedHat Fan Club but actually be the RedHat Sucks Club, and that would mean lawsuits.
So, essentially, all I'm proposing is that domain name registrars actually do some investigation into them. This would really leave a lot more domains open for legitimate uses. My idea presented here is not perfect, but I think the general concept is at least worth some consideration.
The other thing that I would like to see not given much consideration in the above process is people who register some generic word - take computers as an example. I've never been to computers.com, so let's just assume for a minute... Computers.com is (in our imaginary scenario, remember) a page with links to 10 quadrillion computer-related sites. The page isn't sorted in any manner at all. It's just red text on a blue background, with a banner ad. The site looks like crap; it looks worse than newbie-designed FrontPage creations. (Again, a disclaimer - I don't know what computers.com is, I'm just using it as an example.) They really tick me off, I'd really rather end up at Microsoft's web page then at an index of every single page that is in some way related to computers...
But there are flaws with this. If ICANN refuses to register Loser.com to someone wishing to use it as a link to Al Gore's web page (which it is!), then that person could file lawsuits because they're "favoring Al Gore" or whatever...
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
The only reason I want it is so I can have SOS as my URl (think morse code).
Wouldn't this just result in Mr. Aol and Ms. First Post being elected to the board? Do we really want the average internet user, (or even the average slashdot user now-a-days) to be making this type of decision?
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do" E.Roosevelt
What elected person created the TCP/IP standand? What elected person oversaw the HTTP standards? What elected person oversaw the C++ standards? What elected person oversaw the ANSI C standards? What elected person oversees Java?
Someone you trust is one of us.
A PS2
65535 Karma points
www.microsoft.com
Thanks, me.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
anyone remember a post a little while ago about guiness getting domain names along the lines of Ihateguiness.com or the aol thing with them just taking domain names without telling anyone. I think the whole system needs to be revamped, no more of this .com for everything, there needs to be a clear business extension and a seperate net extension. (I know thats what its supposed to be but it just isnt working)
Windows 2000. The choice of the next generation, and a next generation choice.
Windows 2000 : Buy into [mental] stability today.
I'm sick of hearing this. Everyone can see where the moral right is. Hearing it over and over again just revolts me physically.
I hated my life, then I read Slashdot at -1 and realized that at least I wasn't a loser like you.
See who's in control? This little ARPANet has been hand-delivered into the corporate world.
Welcome to the beginning of the ultimate Corporatization of the Inernet.
In a world driven by politics that masquerades as "The People's Will" I'm surprised Florida hasn't seceeded from the Union. ICANN will probably never listen to the little guy.
This is the direction that we have headed for years. Channels have been formed to have disputed domain names handled by organizations like WIPO. What, at this stage, can be done? In other industries you can challenge decisions in court, or boycott, or take problems to oversight committees if you don't agree with the decisions made by those in charge. Who do you go to if you disagree with a domain dispute decision, like in the case of guiness-sucks.com? The governments of the world have shown they lack the understanding of the basic concepts that underlie these problems. The technical community, in general, has no voice, so organizations are set up to deal with the disputes. But where do you go when you disagree with those very organizations?
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
1) India is already on the internet, I even had aguy from India proposition me for his wife in a chatroom. Too bad I didn't have $2,000 in airfare.
2) India has bas relief on temple walls that Republicans would consider pornographic. No need to log onto the internet, just check out a temple.
This pretty much confirms what we've all come to know about the UDRP - that it rewards the big guy. While there are some cases where the little guy wins, it seems that with the high number of cases where the complainant wins, that someone who rightly holds a domain can lose it without just cause.
One of the more disturbing aspects of this report is the RDNH report - that is, reverse domain name hijacking claims. In the ones listed, I counted only 3 - *3*! - that were even considered. This means that if you lose a domain under UDRP, the chances of getting it back if you had it legitamitely are nil.
The system is quite obviously broken. So how do we fix it? I would argue that not even having regular Internet users elect the panelists would help. Unfortunately, our Internet has become the new playground of the corporates, and all those things we used to love and take for granted are gone.
Ah, to be able to take the Internet back to 1996 or earlier, back when banner ads were considered the devil's tool, pages were fairly small by comparison, and the SNR was still high...
Now, let's be reasonable. Even if Mr. Aol and Ms. First Post decided to run, do you really expect the majority of Internet users to elect them?
If you've got a continuous connection to the corporations' network, it seems like the *people* should be able to set up their own network with the addresses reserved for people setting up their own networks.
Improvements in wireless technology will make this even easier.
What's the problem? Fidonet did it with the phone system.
www.thepeoples.internet
I can't help but wonder what is stopping these companies from filing civil suits against the defendants in these cases.
If you look at the Etoy vs Etoys case that played out last year you can draw some interesting (prehaps unfounded) conclusions. I saw a lot of prople here that were very skeptical about Etoys' timing, bringing the suit in the fall and then reaching an agreement right after christmas.
Having a District Court aprove an injunction before arbitration may very well become a tactic employed by plaintifs who know they have the ability to litigate above and beyond the financial resources of the defendants. I have yet to see anything in these arbitration schemes that will stop this.
Can anyone else provide more insight to this? I really hope I just overlooked something.
let's see
$ whois www.ihatewipo.com
whois: whois.internic.net: host unknown
Looks like they got you already. Sorry about that. Damn the man!
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Slashdot.org really should be slashdot.com
[...]
the Slashdot core has turned for-profit ever since the Andover.net buyout
I know this is quite a popular opinion among some Slashdot readers, but it is incorrect. Do you think Slashdot has ever turned a profit off that banner ad up there? Do you think they ever will? Being owned by a commercial entity does not make something commercial by association.
--
Turn on, log in, burn out...
I say: Of course I can, its called a dictionary, and there are several examples of where the authority have changed the language. Color, colour, flavor,flavour are two off the top of my head, which where changed because a dictionary writer (who shall remain nameless because I don't remember the name) decided he wanted the US to be different from the English. But it goes back further. When the french invaded England in the 1500 (give or take a century) they didn't like the way certain words were spelled. Fite became fight, rite became right (There where other examples but it's late). The dictating authority in this case is the French.
Oy, flamebait? My life has been crushed seeing this as flamebait.
But then I had another brownie. Perhaps I shall plotz.
Dude! Br0wn135 RuL3!
0y v3y!
This whole thing with .com, .net, .org is complete bull wank. You should be able to register an arbitrary string (linux.geeks) and go from there. This whole concept of TLD's needs to go.
Very interesting what pops up.
The real address for the American Greetings subsidiary is spelled without the 'e'
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Frightening Possibilities.
P2P_H U M O R
great comedy company.
And what was with that company which wanted both ".kids" and ".sex"? That's a blatant case of pedophilia.
As far as the abuse of TLDs goes, I agree. Doubleclick.net should be doubleclick.com; since they only bog down sites with banner ads, they are providing a corporate disservice, rather than an Internet service. Collegeboard.org should be collegeboard.com; they're definitely making outrageous profits on test fees, penalties, and the like. And (I just know I'm gonna regret this soon, but I have to say it) Slashdot.org really should be slashdot.com; since the only non-profit organization associated with Slashdot are the users; the Slashdot core has turned for-profit ever since the Andover.net buyout. Hey, andover.net, there's another example!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
ICANN c/o Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (NET-ICANN) 4676 Admiralty Way Suite 330 Marina del Rey, CA 90292 It seems like some disease akin to the flu is floating around in the U.S. ;)
This was the standard method until the UDRP.
I was at the ICAN meeting on Sunday. The numbers do not have the information on the cases where the respondent defaults.
To correctly analyze the results from the WIPO, you have to look at the disputed cases.
If you look at the UDNR Paragraph 4,(c)(c). They talk abotu legitimate noncommercial or fair use, but without intent to tarnish trademark or service mark at issue. Critism is fair use, but that could be said to tarnish the mark too.
Fight Spammers!
Whatever it is that you're selling, I'll buy it!
I suppose then that my chances of holding on to
ihatewipo.com are slim.
I have to wonder if the chickens hatched 4 or 5 years ago when people were registering trademarks to give domain registration some attention are now coming home to roost.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
I cannot agree with your general argument, and your examples are not correct. For example, "fight" in Old English was "feohtan." The "gh" in most English words is cognate with German "ch" and even in Middle English was not yet silent.
The French influence on English was more in the form of loan words, and the abandonment of Germanic plurals in favor of the simpler French "-s" suffix (some holdovers include "ox/oxen", "woman/women", "sheep/sheep"). And in the Middle Ages, English pronunciation shifted from a Germanic pattern to more of a hybrid Germanic/French. That's called the Great Vowel Shift. It made the language less guttural, but broke the older spellings.
Back to the topic: the French Academy would have been a better example. They rule on what is and isn't in the French language. Mostly it's a rearguard battle against the incursion of English loan words (I call that payback for the Norman invasion). Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive, though it's sometimes possible for dictionary writers to tweak the language a little here and there, like Noah Webster did. But if I were to produce a Tom's A-Cold Dictionary of English the Way It Oughtta Be, and it was widely divergent from the language we all use, it's unlikely my brain-farts would redirect the course of the language. That's because dictionary writers have no authority. Which contradicts your main point.
ICANN does have authority, even if compliance by DNS server operators is voluntary. So we need to look elsewhere for parallels.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Domain names are like a language: Associating convenient labels with inconvenient stuff. Can you imagine if English was designed by a central words-to-idea-association dictating authority? Superinconvenient and eventually abandoned. How about having domain names determined by a P2P swarmy logic. Precedent and majority would rule, not political clout. No more domain squabbles. NO power to corporations. It would be easy too. Bandwidth? I would have a list of domain name - IP address associations. So would you. If I try to link to a domain not on my list then I can reference your list and update/addto my list from it; or one of my other peers. It works for spoken languages. Is this an old idea?