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Small Business Administration Objects to .US Deal
rlarner writes: "The United States Small Business Administration has written a letter to the NTIA that challenges the .US sale. The SBA claims that the UDRP and sunrise period were not properly enacted - they needed comment periods, etc. The letter is here." We've done a few previous stories about the handling of .us. Free registration of second-level domains under .us were supposed to go live shortly.
Katz is a fag.
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the strongest word is still the word "free"
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
does anyone really care ? With the death of the dot.bombs domain names are not a problem. It is not like they get used in any meaningful or organized way.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
it is good to see the crapflood community come together like this; upholding the right of logged-in first post is critical to the state of the union.
The lamesness filter is broken and is sucks.
After 600+ posts and 20 articles, my karma has been peaked at 50 for what seems like forever now. My new campaign: Karma Suicide!! Every post from now until my karma's back at zero will be this short crapflood posted with my +1 bonus (which i've lost already). So moderators: Do your worst! You got only 6 more points to go! Mod me troll/OT/Overrated/etc to get my karma back to where it began. Do this ASAP! And as for the rest of you, commit karma suicide today!
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
...but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that the organization that doles out .US domains to give trademark holders a brief time to buy their domains. It's not like the sales of domain names would be stagnant, that's for sure, so no money would be lost there. And if a company interested in having their trademark with a .US domain doesn't respond in time (I dunno, a week? Two?) then tough luck. Resolve your cybersquatting issues in court, because you had your chance.
My sigs always suck.
What sort of policies do we want for .us domains?
.gov and .mil addresses should be changed to .gov.us and .mil.us addresses.
.co.us domain to have one more generic level in the domain, such as cnn.news.co.us? That would cut down on the problems of namespace collisions.
I would like to see them become widely used, but I would also like to see some degree of hierarchical naming enforced.
I think all
There should probably be a small set of foo.us domains pre-defined for which people could register bar.foo.us domains.
mybiz.com.us (US business)
myname.indv.us (individual)
mybiz.com.ma.us (Massachussetts local business)
Or should we require any
Huh? .us has been live for a decade.
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
This early post for Ida!
from the letter....NTIA did not submit these legislative rules for notice and comment as required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and did not conduct a regulatory flexibility analysis as required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA).
As part of our statutory duty to monitor agency compliance with the RFA, Advocacy requests that the NTIA place the contract for administration of the Dot US Domain Space on hold and submit the legislative rulemaking provisions for notice and comment, and conduct a regulatory flexibility analysis. Alternatively, NTIA can strike the rulemaking provisions from the contract, and the contract would no longer be subject to the APA. Unless and until NTIA does so, the contract for the management of the Dot US domain is unlawful, as it violates both the APA and the RFA.
While I don't agree with the "sunrise" period mentioned in the letter, it really doesn't matter. According to the statement above NITA dropped the ball. They didn't do what they were supposed to do, didn't get the proper regulatatory "stamp of approval" and the contract should be considered invalid.
After they drop the contract, they should re-think the sunrise policies... but first they need to slap that thing with a big "illigeal" stamp and get it out of there ;)
just my 2cents... -ryanThe EIN consists of a high capacity fiber-optic network based on ownership or contractual access to approximately 18,000 miles of fiber optic network capacity throughout the United States. At December 31, 2000, the EIN included 25 pooling points of which 18 were in the U.S. and one each in Tokyo, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt, allowing the EIN to connect to most major U.S. cities and a large number in Europe. The breadth of pooling points within the EIN extends its reach by allowing connectivity with a greater number of network and service providers. Enron anticipates further increasing the scope and reach of the EIN by adding pooling points during 2001.
The EIN's fiber network and imbedded software intelligence bypasses traditional fragmented and congested public internet routes to deliver faster, higher quality data. Enron's Broadband Operating System provides the intelligence to the EIN and connects to both physical and software network elements. Enron's broadband operating system enables the EIN to: (i) provision bandwidth in real time; (ii) control quality and access to the network for internet service providers; and (iii) control and monitor applications as they stream over the network to ensure quality and avoid congested routes. Enron's broadband operating system automates the transaction process from the order's inception to electronic billing and funds transfer. As a result, the EIN allows Enron to provide high quality content delivery services for content providers and to contract for firm bandwidth delivery commitments to support Enron's bandwidth intermediation business.
Similar to its wholesale energy businesses, Enron acts as principal in its bandwidth transactions and makes markets for bandwidth capacity. Enron provides bandwidth on demand at specified service levels and guaranteed delivery. Enron aggregates bandwidth supplies from multiple counterparties and, from its portfolio of bandwidth contracts, provides flexible, low cost bandwidth management products to its customers. Enron believes that customers will be able to reduce costs by paying for only the bandwidth they use, at prices that reflect the current market. Enron completed the first bandwidth transaction in December 1999, a monthly incremental contract for bandwidth between New York City and Los Angeles. Enron entered into over 300 intermediation transactions during 2000. Enron's plans for the bandwidth capacity markets include risk management products, structured finance and bandwidth portfolio management. In addition to bandwidth, Enron is developing markets and managing risk for all elements of networks, including dark fiber, circuit transactions, internet transit, private transport and storage.
Enron believes that applying its skills developed in the merchant energy services market to the developing bandwidth market can result in operating efficiencies to participants in this market. Development of bandwidth and other related products as commodities will be dependent, among other things, on the ability of the industry to develop and measure quality of service benchmarks and connectivity of networks of market participants to facilitate processing of contracted services. There can be no assurance that such a market will develop.
Enron provides premium broadband delivery services for media and entertainment, financial services, general enterprise and technology companies. The transportation of media-rich content, including live and on-demand streaming video, over the EIN significantly enhances the quality and speed to end-users from that provided by the public internet. Enron focused its efforts in 2000 on the development of a broadband entertainment-on-demand platform to service the anticipated growing demand for interactive entertainment services to the consumer. Enron is pursuing opportunities related to the commercial and technical entertainment on demand model developed during 2000. There can be no assurance that a broad market will develop for premium broadband delivery services.
The real problem with trademarks is that before the net, there was no problem with two companies using the same name as long as it was in a different context. Now that both of those companies will want the same domain name, it gets ugly. When you also have individuals and small organizations getting names in the same namespace, it gets really ugly. Having a more hierarchical namespace helps, but doesn't eliminate the problem.
What's needed isn't a chance for trademark holders to get a head start, but a better system for resolving conflicts when disputes arise.
It should require that the owner of a geographic domain actually live in that state.
What if someone moves inter-state, like I did a few years back? Does your domain change, too?
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
Why bother having new domains if anyone that has a ".com" is going to end up having first crack buying every other "dot" extension under the sun?
Look at the other TLD extensions, like .tv, .cc, etc. How many sites under those TLD's do you actually see?
.cc, they went back home to .com, to the tune of http://zetarocks.com/.
.us domain will be similarly received by business interests.
A local radio station, WHTZ 94.9 (Zeta) swtiched from 949zeta.com to 949zeta.cc, but a few months after going to
I think the
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
please visit my new website http://www.suck.us
security through obscurity = modding down anti-linux posts so maybe noone will see them
Business and people as well (parents mostly anyway).
.xxx not a reality?
.xxx domain.
:)
Follow me for a second here.....
Why is
1) Think how much easier it would be for corporations to block "inappropriate" sites.
2) Parental Software would actually protect kids from viewing adult material.
3) I can't see it hurting the porn industry. Hell, they make more money than any other type of business on the web.
Just my 2 cents, I know it's somewhat off topic, but I just find it appalling that this is more of an issue than the creation of the
*This has been yet another Yopt mini-rant, NOT brought to you by the The Helena Rubinstein Foundation. Todays Letter is X X & X and the number 2x4x6x8*
if somebody knows about domain-name origins: Why is South Africa .za? My wife asked last nite.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Do we really want to trust a company to manage the .us domain when they can't even manage to get the contract legally...
Zuid-Afrika?
The owls are not what they seem
Here is the abstract:
I have a blog.
With Trademark law trumping (virtuall) all name issues on the internet, adding a new TLD for use anywhere is simply useless.
...well that is, of course, unless it's a personal domain...and only then if your name doesn't conflict with some trademark somewhere.
Where do you live, North Dakota?
Do you have any idea how many "Jim Smith" or "Bob Jones" there are in New York or California? Including middle names doesn't eliminate the name collisions, but makes the system much less useful since most people don't routinely use their middle names and acquaintances are unlikely to know them.
Even in Iowa you'll see a lot of collisions.
A while back a friend and I did web searches for our "friends." We all have relatively uncommon names, both family and given. Yet all of us had "twins" listed on the net, sometimes "twins" near our own age and in our own profession. Some of us had multiple hits - back in 1995 a coworker found 4 other men with the same name. Today the same search would probably yield a dozen or more matches.
This search was at the national level, not state level, but that's arguably a moot point since our population is so mobile that it's common for people to live in several states during their lifetime.
Taking a step back from the problem, a few years ago comp.risks mentioned an Australian plan (population 20 million) to uniquely identify citizens by full name and date of birth. They discovered that THREE women had the same name and birthday after the state detected "fraud" in the student loan program - the same "person" was simultaneously enrolled in college and earning a paycheck 1000 km away. (I don't remember what the third woman was doing.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I feel the same about this "Sunrise" stuff as a vampire would - I regard it's coming with a deep and unabiding dread, as I know it will be a bad thing.
.us. Under that system, I could register "foo.ks.us", and you could register "foo.ok.us", and there would be no conflict. If I didn't have a presense in Oklahoma, I had no ability to register a .ok.us domain.
Consider the "old", location-based, heirarchical system for
Now, you WILL have "microsoft.us", "sony.us", etc. If I had a small business specializing in fixing Sony TV's, I won't be able to register "wowbaggers_sony.ks.us".
How does this help small businesses?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Are the old state.us domain heirarchys grandfathered
in or are they going to be arbitrarily taken back
and sold to the highest bidder?
Since state.us has existed for a long time it would seem rather dumb for the commerce department to yank the state's domain names away from them.
Are the two letter state abbreviations trademarked by the post office so noone else can use them?
Having a domain other than .com, .net, or .org is like getting kissed over the telephone, or winning a silver medal.
How does this help small businesses?
Help small businesses? That's not the American way! Get your Big Mac, your Coke, and go home to watch Disney movies on your Sony DVD player and TV. Or surf AOL/TimeWarner on your Dell computer with your Microsoft OS.
Well since you are registering a third level domain - ***.ks.us - you should be fine. They are not getting rid of the locality specific domains and Sony doesn't have any special claim on third level domains. You can
.US registrants (domain name holders) within the "locality space" will retain rights to their existing Internet addresses. In fact, existing domain name holders will benefit from many of the operational improvements and improved security and service levels NeuStar will introduce within .US.
From the site:
Existing
So long as I can get "r.us" I'll be happy. :)
Is "toys.r.us" an actionable trademark infringment? What if it's a site devoted to criticizing society's obsession with the latest technology?
Edith Keeler Must Die
Everything Solaris recently posted a slew of articles, showing that the Solaris community is alive and well. Featuring Open Source software, articles like "Providing Core Customer Services" discuss how to set up that new infrastructure with both Open Source and high-availability in mind. Other interesting articles include, "Replacing Sendmail with Postfix" and "Upgrading to ProFTPD."
But the .us TLD isn't "for use anywhere"-- unlike the generic TLDs such as .com and .org, it's only for US citizens, residents and businesses. So it does have some level of specificity.
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
The solution to all this domain name crap is to abstract away from it -- users whould not have to type in all this www.load.of.crap.extention.in.Zimbabwe. The interface should be pure hyperlinking, no addresses.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
Anyone know how to go about getting a *.state.*.us domain?
*.state.ut.us to be more exact.
have looked all over trying to find out how and even GOOGLE is giving me no love =(
Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom. But sharing data is the first step toward community
Registration of SLD under the TLD .us is not free.
.us as you do currently for one under .com.
The fees charged are registrar are $5.50 per name per year, more for the first year. This is explained in schedule f)
This is about the same amount that Network Solutions charges ($6.00 a year) so you can expect to pay approximately the same amount for a SLD under
P.S. Network Solutions took in over $600,000,000 last year, about 1/5 of which was from external registrars, the rest being from their own registration service.
Fact - Sunrise and UDRP is against Unfair Competition Law and the First Amendment.
.US ccTLD.
To explain:
Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over.
Most trademarks share the same words or initials with many others.
Any TM lawyer will tell you all that I write is true - though they will certainly disagree with my conclussion.
Most companies share the same word(s) for trademark, in a different type of business (classification).
But only one will be allowed to use it, to get the domain name in the American
For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - in the U.S. alone. Please check at USPTO.
In this example, only one can be WTO.us !!!
What about the other five ???
As this is the main American country TLD (ccTLD) - is it not unfair on the others, that one should be given priority over them?
The same goes for all words in the dictionary - a few will get priority over the many.
Point 1 - I thought it unlawful to award it to just one - is it not against unfair competition law?
Point 2 - This is abridgement of words that small businesses (without a trademark) and the American people can use - Surely it violates the First Amendment?
Perhaps a lawyer would like to address these two points.
None have so far - wonder why?
No - I don't wonder why - I know the truth of the matter.
My logical conclussion is this: Big Business is abusing the powers of their trademarks, the Lawyers are making a fortune out of it and the Authorities are corrupt.
The authorities know the solution to trademark conflict with domain names. It was ratified by honest attorneys - including the honourable G. Gervaise Davis III, UN WIPO panellist judge.
Please see it yourself at WIPO.org.uk).
No bull* propaganda or spin from trademark lawyers - see feeble excuses link on the site.