Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Small Business Administration Objects to .US Deal

Posted by michael on from the standing-up-for-the-little-guy dept.

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.

18 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. I'm probably going to get flamed for this... by mystery_bowler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...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.
  2. What do we want for .us? by crow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What sort of policies do we want for .us domains?

    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 .gov and .mil addresses should be changed to .gov.us and .mil.us addresses.

    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 .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.

    1. Re:What do we want for .us? by zulux · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think all .gov and .mil addresses should be changed to .gov.us and .mil.us addresses.


      We should leave the .mil namespace alone - so when the Three-Headed Mars Menace takes over our military thought their mind-rays, we can easily find the .mil DNS servers and cover hem with aluminum foil (shinny side out) to keep them under our controll. That and, .mil and .edu is kinda of an homage to the people who helped develope the internet.

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    2. Re:What do we want for .us? by blibbleblobble · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why not mirror the UK system, which works reasonably well:

      co.uk - commerical (sounds better than com.uk)
      ac.uk - academic, universities, schools, etc
      org.uk - organisations, charities, and the like
      gov.uk - official government sites
      net.uk - UK network providers ?

      Of course, in the US, I guess each state would be interested in providing it's own DNS server:
      ak.states.us
      nd.states.us
      tx.states.us
      (the .states. makes it legible to a non-american)

    3. Re:What do we want for .us? by SamBeckett · · Score: 3, Funny
      That and, .mil and .edu is kinda of an homage to the people who helped develope the internet.

      Wouldn't we need .al.gore.us too, then?

    4. Re:What do we want for .us? by Matey-O · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If the rules are too strict, you're left with:

      http://unemploymentBenefits.cdle.state.co.us

      Try to give THAT to a reporter over the phone and not get it screwed up in the news clipping!

      (www.coworkforce.com/uib works MUCH better)

      --
      "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
  3. trademarks by crow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. This is getting silly. by gpinzone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  5. Re:err another useless TLD by speederaser · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?

  6. More on underlying legal theories by Froomkin · · Score: 5, Informative
    If you would like a more extensive discussion of the underlying US constitutional and statutory legal issues, please see my article Wrong Turn in Cyberspace: Using ICANN to Route Around the APA and the Constitution, 50 Duke L.J. 17 (2000), also available in tidy .pdf format.

    Here is the abstract:

    The Internet relies on an underlying centralized hierarchy built into the domain name system (DNS) to control the routing for the vast majority of Internet traffic. At its heart is a single data file, known as the "root." Control of the root provides singular power in cyberspace.

    This Article first describes how the United States government found itself in control of the root. It then describes how, in an attempt to meet concerns that the United States could so dominate an Internet chokepoint, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) summoned into being the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a formally private nonprofit California corporation. DoC then signed contracts with ICANN in order to clothe it with most of the U.S. government's power over the DNS, and convinced other parties to recognize ICANN's authority. ICANN then took regulatory actions that the U.S. Department of Commerce was unable or unwilling to make itself, including the imposition on all registrants of Internet addresses of an idiosyncratic set of arbitration rules and procedures that benefit third-party trademark holders.

    Professor Froomkin then argues that the use of ICANN to regulate in the stead of an executive agency violates fundamental values and policies designed to ensure democratic control over the use of government power, and sets a precedent that risks being expanded into other regulatory activities. He argues that DoC's use of ICANN to make rules either violates the APA's requirement for notice and comment in rulemaking and judicial review, or it violates the Constitution's nondelegation doctrine. Professor Froomkin reviews possible alternatives to ICANN, and ultimately proposes a decentralized structure in which the namespace of the DNS is spread out over a transnational group of "policy partners" with DoC.

    --

    I have a blog.

  7. Re:How about somthing that would help..... by Aexia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Here's the problem:

    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 .xxx, but not all of it. Filtering sites would likely be about as effective as it is now.

  8. TLDs are useless!!! by erroneus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  9. *boggle* by coyote-san · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  10. This is all moot to me by TheRealFixer · · Score: 3, Funny

    Having a domain other than .com, .net, or .org is like getting kissed over the telephone, or winning a silver medal.

  11. Re:I like this "Sunrise" stuff about like a vampir by RazzleFrog · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

    From the site:
    Existing .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.

  12. Re:What will happen to state domain heirarchys? by RazzleFrog · · Score: 3, Informative

    At the risk of a redundant mod:

    From the site:
    Existing .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.

  13. It's not "for use anywhere" by marnanel · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  14. Not free. by AnotherBlackHat · · Score: 3, Informative

    Registration of SLD under the TLD .us is not free.
    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 .us as you do currently for one under .com.

    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.