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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.
...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.
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 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.
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?
Of course they care. There are probably hundreds of /.ers waiting to lock in the url all.your.base.are.belong.to.us
The 1337 kiddies out there will want
411.y0ur.b453.4r3.b3|0ng.70.us
And what about toys.r.us?
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.
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-->
Here is the abstract:
I have a blog.
Here's the problem:
.xxx, but not all of it. Filtering sites would likely be about as effective as it is now.
Define "inappropriate" as well as the penalties for posting something "inappropriate" on non-.xxx domains. Hardcore porn is easy but what about safe-sex guides? Sexual positions manual? Is it inappropriate if you use cartoons? Computer generated models? Unerotic photos of models?
You'll never be able to make it mandatory. Sure, you might be able to move a great deal of the porno business to
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
For those of us who are unfamiliar with this kind of writing: 411.y0ur.b453.4r3.b3|0ng.70.us, can you give a brief tutorial, as in why do people type like this?
I get it that different characters are substituted for letters. But what's really the point? It just makes it harder to read. Am I missing something? What is 1337? Am I just too old?
Um, I think AlterNIC has had .xxx for years. So their users (and users of hierarchies who peers with them, such as OpenNIC) are all ready to connect to your .xxx site.
You can whine about ICANN, or you can set up your machine(s) to take away their power and get what you want. Pretty easy decision, IMHO.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
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
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.
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.
It has not been alleged that Neustar acted illegal in obtaining the contract. The complaint made by the SBA is against the NTIA improperly requesting certain things be in the contract.
Of course, that doesn't mean you should trust Neustar - just that they have been accused of anything illegal yet.
-- Is a sign that says "no solicitors" spam?
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.
err..hmm IF the .com TLD was actually used as a comercial only place you might have a point beyond the one on your head. What does your multiple personalities have to do with anything ? As to who is Oblivious err try reading before responding..if you can. I can detect morons on sight. They post as AC.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?