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.

Comments

Very VERY good article

[Masem]

That was good reading, and I'm impressed on the collection of statistics. I think that the main conclusion is obvious (the balance between free speech and trademark protection), but with strong evidence showing that current resolution methods tend to favor the latter.

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.

Re:Very VERY good article

[krlynch]

...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 would have to disagree with you here...in a fair system, you would only bring a dispute in those cases where you expected to win on the merits; the net result in the long run (not necessarily the short run, while precedents are being made and people are trying to find out what the rules really are) would be the complainant winning much more often, because you would just be wasting your money to bring a case without merit. Thus, I think that in the long run you would expect basically the same stats as we are seeing now.

Which is not to say that I necessarily think things are fair now, just that I don't think "fair" would equate with 50/50 outcomes.

Re:Very VERY good article

[Masem]

True, the distribution would be far away from 50/50 if there was a good basis of well estiblished cases such that the only conflicts that were brought to abriation were those that had studied said cases and already made a decision that they have a strong case. Then 80/20 would be quite reasonable.

But this process, whether the arbitration is over cybersquatting or the reverse domain name hijacking, is just about a year old; there is only a small number (600+) of cases to base previous suits on. As the acticle describes, there is no consistancy on these decisions across the board, so the case history is poor and/or selectively used. In addition, there is still the muddy line between trademark abuse and free speech. This is where knowing the history of the case beyond what the articles report become important.

There are obvious cases of cybersquatting which should not be considered in a modified tally. Ignoring those, all other cases run the gambit of free speech vs trademarks. Because we don't have a line where one ends, and the second begins, all of these preliminary cases should be defining where that line is, and with that, I would argue that in a unbias arbitration system that line is going to be closer to 50/50 than 80/20. But that line is not there, but instead closer to 80/20, indicating bias towards trademark owners. I look through some of the WIPO decisions (not just those listed in this article), and look at both wins for the complainent and for the respondent, and there's an obvious divide in those decisions. I could argue only a little with some of the respondent victories: more are clear-cut cases of freedom of speech over corporate interests. Yet, on the complainent side, there are some true cases of trademark ownership taking priority, but more than enough where it's very questionable, (any somethingsucks.com case, for example). The bias is clearly there. I'd like to take a similar look through eResolutions and see if similar biasing exists.

But getting back to my point, companies know there is a bias and seem to be taking advantage of it. If I register CompanyXsucks.com, and run a legitamit site off it that has consumer complaints on Company X's products, I should not expect Company X to try to bully me over it as it's FoSpeech. But knowing that using arbitaration may give them the edge, particularly if they use WIPO and NAF, they will persue action. They don't have a strong guarentee that they'll win, but for a measly $1500, they have a better than 50/50 shot. And if they do win, this can influence more companies in similar situations to try to do RDNH in a slippery slope fashion. This is why any unbalanced arbiration system is a bad thing, and consistancy regarding trademarks vs FoSpeech is important to qualify now and not a year from now.

I'm registering .GOD

[pivot_enabled]

We are going to look back at this in 10 years and laugh.

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!

It's kinda fishy

[Lumpy]

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.

ICANN & WIPO break the Law

[Garry Anderson]

Message to WIPO & ICANN from WIPO.org.uk (SWIPO.org)

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. .REG or similar. What you are doing is unlawful.

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.

Re:WIPO sucks

[Lawbeefaroni]

Netsol Whois:

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.

Why not millions of DNS systems?

[patrixmyth]

Why do we bother with trying to come up with a single or even a small group of methods ofr administering domain names? Is the idea making every website accessible to every person on earth? What an inanely stupid idea.

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!)

Re:Why not millions of DNS systems?

[Skapare]

You can also do this with DNS servers (for instance an ISP can do it for their customers, and even have mutiple choices of DNS servers set up differently) and choose what info you get per top level domain. A couple years ago I set up a tool to help those making their own "dot zone" to fill it in with their own choices. You can see that tool here.

why not to use elected officials

[Casca]

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.

"Really Bad Decisions"

[Speare]

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.

• Excerpted:
• Crew.com
  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.
• Bodacious-tatas.com
  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.
• Esquire.com
  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.
• Guinness-beer-really-sucks.com
  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.
• Barcelona.com
  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.
• Tonsil.com
  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.
• Traditions.com
  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

who cares?

[loosenut]

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.

Re:who cares?

[_xeno_]

Ads on TV, ads on the radio. That's why .coms need a catchy domain name. Most of the smaller sites don't. It's already getting annoying listening to some of the ads, since they have to spell out their URL ("Come to E-Job-Foo, that's Ee, dash, Jay, Oh, Bee, dash, Eff, Oh, Oh, dotcom...")

That's why companies fight so hard for "their" trademarks once their taken. Which is easier to remember, clue.hasbro.com or clue.com? Go see X-Men at xmen.com as opposed to x-men-the-movie.com or even worse x-men-the-movie.fox.com! It's all about making them memorable. Short is important. Common words are important. Since most people try the .com first (whitehouse.com anyone?), the .COM domains are important. (Personally, I don't think new TLDs will help at all but I'm probably wrong. At least, I hope I am.)

That's why companies fight for "their trademark" - it's because the shorter and simpler the domain name, the easier it is to remember. Slashdot is simple to remember - if Slashdot were still something along the lines of slashdot.res.hope.edu or whatever it's original URL was (I'm not exactly a newcomer as my 150000+ ID shows, so I dunno the original URL) it wouldn't be as popular - people wouldn't hear about from word-of-mouth and head there ("Oh, I read this on Slashdot." "What?" "It's a webpage, Slashdot.org." "Oh, OK, I'll check it out sometime..." compared to "It's a webpage, slashdot.res.hope.net." "Right..."). How many people actually write down the URLs they hear/see in ads? Not many. So it needs to be memorable - which is why companies fight for the simple names.

Once a company has taught their customer base to think of them as their name, they don't want to have to re-teach all their customers a different, strange URL. Imaging instead of Kraft.com being forced to go for kraft-food.com? Or instead of cheerios.com having to send people to cheerios.general-mills.com or even cheerios.general-mills-cereals.com? Marketers aren't that stupid - that's the reason companies fight for these domain names. People do need to make them easy to remember.

As that Indian-sex-word squatter is going to find out, porn sites don't follow the same rules - they get most of their hits through banners or search hits. So having to do some weird domain isn't going to effect them at all. It's corporate America that needs to teach Joe Sixpack to remember how to spell their name that needs the short, simple domains.

Re:Important Issue, Frightening Possibilities

[Danse]

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.

Pissed? Form/Support Alternat TLD Authorities

[LHOOQtius_ov_Borg]

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...

Form/Support Alternat TLD Authorities

[DiviN]

been done / in process:
http://www.opennic.unrated.net

My Solution

[SUWAIN]

I've been reading about this conference/study, and have been reflecting on several influential posts. After much deep reflection, I have come to a conclusion on a necessary course of action. In other words, I developed an opinion of what ICANN should do.

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

Elected by the general internet population??

[NicGCotton]

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?

Re:Elected by the general internet population??

[JurriAlt137n]

Do we want Joe Schmoe to elect the next president?
No we don't.
Does Joe Schmoe have that choice?
Yes he does.
Why does he have that choice?
Because that's the whole concept of a democratic system.
Is that the way we want it?
I'll leave that up to you to answer...

Re:Elected by the general internet population??

[titus-g]

As far as ICANN goes it could be none before too long.

From the reg:

"Now, however, ICANN - despite publicly stated pledges to the opposite - intends to reduce the number of directly elected representatives from nine to five and even remove the public from a right to vote in future elections."

The rest of the article is here

Re:Elected by the general internet population??

[rossz]

What typical elitist bullshit! That's the same attitude used to scare people away from voting for non-lawyers for a public office.

Yes, I do want the average person choosing representatives of their choice - good or bad.

Who cares about Elected officials?

[selectspec]

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?

Re:Who cares about Elected officials?

[GeorgeH]

You elect the people who created the TCP/IP standard every time you send a packet. You elect Tim Berners-Lee (the creator of HTTP, right?) every time you view a web page. You elect the C++ guy or C guys (Dennis Ritchie and Ken Tompson?) or Sun every time you write a program in their language(I elect Larry Wall!).

You can choose to be in or out of those standards, but domain name resolutions are legally binding whether you believe in ICANN or not.
--

Re:Who cares about Elected officials?

[T-Ranger]

The very significant difference is that when those standards were being defined the process was open. No, there was not an elected committee of people created to defined the standards. But everyone could add to the process.

The problem with ICANN is that they dont have a open process, and there members are not selected by the populus.

Im a beleiver that either a republic, or a representitive democrarcy (where the people decide who makes the decisions) are superior to pure democracys (where the people make every little decision, and hasent existed in a large scale for centuries) primaraly because I think that most people neither have the time nor the inclination to make effective decisions.

If its a collection of self selected people ruling you, then the process has to be open. If the people in charge have been selected by the populus the process, there on, can be as closed as they want.

You either have to have open discussion, or open elections. ICANN has neither.

Well, no surprises here...

[sachmet]

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...

Buck the system

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just create your own system? If I'm using the addresses reserved for personal use (10.0.0.0, etc...) I can make that my.domain on my host. I can make everyone on my network recognize my.domain. Can't this be taken a step further-- our.domain? I imagine most people reading this are already doing this on a small scale at home/work.

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

Re:Buck the system

[Kyller]

This is already happening.

http://www.opennic.unrated.net

I have a feeling this is going to get really big.

----Clip from the Site----
The OpenNIC is a user owned and controlled Network Information Center offering a democratic, non-national, alternative to the traditional Top-Level Domain registries. In case you were looking for them, the traditonal TLDs are currently served by Network Solutions with policies set by ICANN
----End----

All you do is change the root.cache file and your done! TLD's that people can actually vote on.

Re:Buck the system

[Skapare]

You can also just run your own DNS server with whatever TLDs you want, and point them to whichever zone authority you want. Point .COM at the Internic servers to keep it the same, or point it somewhere else to make it be different. You can make the decision different for each TLD, leave some out, or add more (maybe lots more). You don't have to set up world-wide DNS to do this as it can be done in whatever DNS server(s) you now use for resolving names now. The load doesn't increase by doing this; in fact it decreases slightly because one level of lookup is bypassed.

Click on http://grs.ipal.net/ to see what I set up a couple years ago to build zone files for this kind of thing.

What about the Etoy vs Etoys case?

[0xA]

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.

Re:Coporatization of the Internet

[Skapare]

If you run a DNS server, it is you who has handed DNS control to the corporations. Take a look at your root hints file in the DNS configuration. That basically says "let the control start there". And you point at the corporations. To take control back, just gather where NS records for TLDs you want to keep using are pointing to, then fill in what you want for the others, and add whatever you want. Restart your DNS server and enjoy the new control.

Re:Alternative DNS

[Skapare]

How would they be able to not allow it? All you have to do is set up your own DNS server (if you don't already have one), change the data starting at the "dot zone", and make it use whatever data you want. You can make .com point to Internic or change it to point somewhere else. You will have that level of control with every top level domain when you run your own "dot zone". And it's your server.

A couple years ago I made this tool to help build a "dot zone". I could bring it back and keep it updated, or someone else can just take the code and do it for themselves (free source code). All that's needed is the willingness to just do it.

Important Issue, Frightening Possibilities

[grovertime]

Important Issue

1. There is no question that the ICANN system is worth discussing, worth getting involved in, and even worth being somewhat paranoid about. Anyone who has ever registered a domain, transfered a URL, or visited a webpage oughtta look into this - how exactly do we resolve disputes over an issue that muddies jurisdiction? There is amazing potential for cross-border, legal unity here, but more dire, there are.....

Frightening Possibilities.

1. The first is what is touched upon in most of these Slashdot posts, that being the elected versus non-elected nature of those who preside over these multi-jurisdictional matters. The first step that needs to be taken, is internet users, much like a populace as a whole, must vote to create a system of elected officials (Florida voters need not apply). The development of the system is far more concerning that nit-picking at the individuals currently on the board. Now if we focus on the process, then there are two other areas of great concern: 1) What can be done to copyright to allow it to fall under universal law? My feeling is that very little, and that we oughtta use Lessig's balance between over-governing and pantisocratic ideals. The fact that Madonna.com was turned over to the pop-star, and that several reverse-branding cases have been overturned, this is clearly the biggest grey area. 2) The second area of concern involves the rights of the domain holder. While everyone is screaming about their brand being attacked and their name compromised, very little effort is being put into the differences between, say, Penguin and Penguin.com. They are
2. not the same. This is a point we as an online community need to resolve post-haste. Deliberate attempts to compromise an offline brand (ie. someone launching a new publishing house on penguin.com) is definitely a wrongdoing, but using it so sell penguin stuffed animals is not, and from the verdicts reached of late - this is not being addressed.

1. 
   P2P_H U M O R
   

What I want to know is...

[AFCArchvile]

...who is getting ".dot"? Rob would sure like to make it "http://slashdot.dot".

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!

Appeal

[www.sorehands.com]

There is still the standard method of appeal -- the courts.

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.

ihatewipo.com

[glgraca]

I suppose then that my chances of holding on to
ihatewipo.com are slim.

It's a messed up system already

[Jart]

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?