From: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org (WG-C-DIGEST) To: wg-c-digest@dnso.org Subject: WG-C-DIGEST V1 #61 Reply-To: Sender: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Errors-To: owner-wg-c-digest@dnso.org Precedence: bulk WG-C-DIGEST Thursday, March 23 2000 Volume 01 : Number 061 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 19:03:59 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 23-Mar-2000 Rick H Wesson wrote: > The access and ability to run a gTLD should > always be serving some public interest Public interest? Sounds socialistic to me. - - -- William X. Walsh http://userfriendly.com/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192 GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1c (Mandrake Linux) Comment: Userfriendly Networks http://www.userfriendly.com/ iD8DBQE42Yme8zLmV94Pz+IRAsFBAKDYUx+MNZrh8thM2wxcHgVWUPrwAwCgolEL ZUF/4rp4+/7jMQrt3dkC2c8= =658M - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:12:29 -0500 (EST) From: James Love Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Kent Crispin wrote: > > Why not permit every ISP with a million or more customers to have a > > TLD of their choice? This could be a simple rule. I'm sure there > > would be complaints, but would it cause any harm? It wouldn't hurt me. > > Wow. "It wouldn't hurt me." That's deep. I'm really encouraged that > you are a consumer advocate. > > There are countries where *no* ISP has a million customers... I think the "what's the harm" issue isn't trivial. My point isn't to see some policy of "you need a million," which would eliminate Essential Information as a potential registry, but to say, why wouldn't an ISP with a million customers be permited to have its own TLD? I can't see any technical reason why not. I used a million to make the point that if the argument is about the technical capability of the registry, certaintly there is some point where one can assume they can pull it off. Indeed, if a company is asking to use its own legitimate, and even famous, trademark as a TLD, it would seem to present even fewer problems, because one else could use it anyway. Who but AT&T could use .ATT, and who but AOL could use .AOL? I could support this, but also support lots of other rationales for getting authorization to manage a TLD. Right now I'm mostly working on .union, .isnotfair, .ecology, .customer, .sucks, .ngo and some other non-commercial proposals. I wouldn't expect AT&T or AOL to benefit directly from these proposals, but I don't think they would have a reason to oppose them either. Maybe one of the more difficult problems will be to address the issue of who will control various cool names that would be used for a "chartered" TLD, or a TLD that would seek to caputure some of the economic rent from the use of a cool name. Jamie ============================================= James Love, Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 ============================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:21:44 -0500 (EST) From: James Love Subject: Re: [wg-c] re: Choosing the intial testbed On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, William X. Walsh wrote: > You are suggesting limiting this vote to the 5,000 approved ICANN "members?" Yes. but "approved" is a loaded term, and if there was a vote, the number of ICANN members would likly increase, including anyone who was interested enough to register as a voter. > Please. First of all, this will not be anywhere NEAR ready in the foreseeable > future. Secondly, this is nowhere NEAR a solution for polling the "Internet > Community." I don't think there is a "solution for polling the 'Internet community," and what is the "Internet Community" other than a polemical device for avoiding identifying who will actually make decisions? ICANN says they can do the vote by September for the Board. That seems pretty fast. And the membership in ICANN is presently open and free to anyone with an email address and an postal address, which isn't a bad criteria, IMO. At least it is a criteria. But fine if you have an actual way to create a rival *election* process, that can be done faster. Jamie PS, I've used the term, "election" and others have used the word "polling." I don't think they mean the same thing, although they are similar ideas. ============================================= James Love, Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 ============================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 19:28:32 -0800 (PST) From: "William X. Walsh" Subject: Re: [wg-c] re: Choosing the intial testbed - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The ICANN membership is so badly restricted in size and in scope that it would not be an effective source for this "election". That restriction alone will meet with way too much opposition to be taken seriously here. On 23-Mar-2000 James Love wrote: > On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, William X. Walsh wrote: >> You are suggesting limiting this vote to the 5,000 approved ICANN "members?" > > Yes. but "approved" is a loaded term, and if there was a vote, the > number of ICANN members would likly increase, including anyone who was > interested enough to register as a voter. > >> Please. First of all, this will not be anywhere NEAR ready in the >> foreseeable >> future. Secondly, this is nowhere NEAR a solution for polling the "Internet >> Community." > > I don't think there is a "solution for polling the 'Internet > community," and what is the "Internet Community" other than a polemical > device for avoiding identifying who will actually make decisions? > > ICANN says they can do the vote by September for the Board. That > seems pretty fast. > > And the membership in ICANN is presently open and free to anyone > with an email address and an postal address, which isn't a bad criteria, > IMO. At least it is a criteria. > > But fine if you have an actual way to create a rival *election* > process, that can be done faster. > > Jamie > > PS, I've used the term, "election" and others have used the word > "polling." I don't think they mean the same thing, although they are > similar ideas. > > ============================================= > James Love, Consumer Project on Technology > P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org > Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org > Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 > ============================================= - - -- William X. Walsh http://userfriendly.com/ Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192 GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1c (Mandrake Linux) Comment: Userfriendly Networks http://www.userfriendly.com/ iD8DBQE42Y9g8zLmV94Pz+IRAp6xAJ951XP50tVsw3GIFTESXBScj+c6tgCfVu5w xO+voNNMSUhJtx5dsh7bszs= =O4Xs - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:31:31 -0500 From: Jonathan Weinberg Subject: [wg-c] list rules The list has had an explosion of traffic in the past few days. Not all of the messages have been real helpful, and the total volume of them is driving people batty and making the list a lot less useful as a discussion forum. Further, a huge number of the messages have been generated by a small number of people -- over the past four days, just three list members have managed to post a combined total of over fifty messages. Once again, a reminder: the rules of this list call for no more than *two posts per day*. (Send three, even four, every so often, that's OK too. But what we've seen just now is way beyond that.) So cut it out -- the list can't function with this level of traffic. Jon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:37:15 -0500 From: "Milton Mueller" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed - ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Charles Broomfield" > I'm sure that ".ibm", ".adidas", ".linux", ".toyota", ".pepsi" etc would be > great TLDs from the point of view of their respective owners, but I can't > quite see the usefulness to the rest of the 'net for them. Uhhh...do you see the usefulness of linux.com, ibm.com, toyota.com, and pepsi.com? It is of tremendous value for a company or a group to be able to manage its own name space, from top to bottom. It would solve a lot of the trademark problems, for one. At any rate, If the rest of the net doesn't think those TLDs are useful they won't go there. It won't cost us anything to create them (I'm just quoting Kent here, you seem to agree with him a lot). I don't think .cc and about 100 other ccTLDs are very useful, but they are there, and it doesn't bother me a bit. I strongly protest the rhetorical tactic of attempting to establish "usefulness to the entire Internet community" as the baseline standard for setting policy. That is nothing but an arbitrary straitjacket, an impossible standard for any proposal to meet, and only leads to ridiculous debates about which pipsqueak on this absurd list speaks for the entire world. The Internet is a way for millions of privately owned computers and thousands of private and public networks to connect with each other. To the global set of computer users as a whole, almost any ONE of the sites is of little significance. But the Internet acquired its value as a system precisely because it didn't have a bunch of bureaucrats sitting around deciding for the rest of the world whether "bla-bla.com" was of sufficient merit to be granted the immense privilege of a domain name, or whether the content on "bourgeois.com" was "useful" to some imagined collectivity. It just connected everybody. And in case you hadn't noticed, connecting everyone and coordinating resources is supposed to be ICANN's job. So let's get down to it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:42:34 -0500 From: "Milton Mueller" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed This debate just gets weirder and weirder. ICANN have just spent the last two years making the world safe for trademark owners in the SLD space, and now the geniuses in this WG say that when a string moves from one level of DNS to the other it magically changes all its properties and becomes untrademarkable. Why wouldn't this maxim apply to the SLD space? Those of you who are concerned about the horrors of "ownership" of domain names, just what do you think is occurring when courts of law and UDRP "arbitrators" take registrations away from one person and give them to another on the basis of trademark claims? - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick H Wesson" > > a simple constraint for gTLD my be that they are *not* trademarkable for > the purpose of being a gTLD. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:48:16 -0500 From: "Milton Mueller" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kent Crispin" > > I personally don't see why AOL, with millions of customers, couldn't > > have .aol. Or my AT&T couldn't use .att, if they wanted to. > > Because there is therefore no reasonable criteria by which you could > restrict *any* TM holder from getting a TLD. Omigod! The name space might have to respond to user demand! The Horror!!! Kent, you have already proven to our satisfaction that adding additional TLDs to existing registries can be done at something close to zero marginal cost. So what's the problem with this scenario? > > Why not permit every ISP with a million or more customers to have a > > TLD of their choice? This could be a simple rule. I'm sure there > > would be complaints, but would it cause any harm? It wouldn't hurt me. > > Wow. "It wouldn't hurt me." That's deep. I'm really encouraged that > you are a consumer advocate. Nice rhetoric, but you didn't answer his question. If you don't like the "million" threshold, lower it. The principle is the same. Why not? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 23:02:06 -0500 From: Eric Brunner Subject: [wg-c] Re: [wg-c[ Choosing the intial testbed Mr. Love, We've a small, tedious rule most of us attempt to follow most of the time, which is two-per-day. I've violated it, but not with quite the enthusiasm you've shown today. If the following are forgeries or whatever, please accept my appologies. All appear to be for mail sent on 03/22/00 (today) to WG-C. Message-ID: <38D8E2BC.84564D70@cptech.org> Message-ID: <38D8E54F.AE6C04B6@cptech.org> Message-ID: <38D90ABE.A3A26D3F@cptech.org> Message-ID: <38D90CA4.B948A14C@cptech.org> Message-ID: <38D91379.9CD7751B@cptech.org> Message-ID: <38D92963.64D042CE@cptech.org> Message-ID: <38D92C28.83B67911@cptech.org> Message-ID: Message-ID: Message-ID: Now, on to something more serious than just getting worked up over being 14 minutes deep into a 15 minute period of "fame" and getting lots of mail to sort. [A few weeks ago I happened to write to Charlie Perkins about a MANET issue, both of us then being at Nokia Research, and I ended up discussing reverse kinematics and the sphere packing problem, so today's little note brings a bit of personal pleasure to me.] In 1611 Kepler wrote a little booklet, "The Six-Cornered Snowflake", in which he stated the Kepler Conjecture, posed by Raleigh to Harriot a few years earlier. It reads: No packing of balls of the same radius in three dimensions has density greater than the face-centered cubic packing. Now the Kepler Conjecture was Hilbert's 18th problem (of 23), and was only proved a few years ago by Tom Hales, so it stood for just under 400 years as something inuitive, yet unprovable. In his introduction Hilbert wrote that a test of the perfection of a mathematical problem is whether it can be explained to the first person on the street. Those would have been gunners hovering over cannon-ball piles in the early 1600's, and greengrocers with oranges in the present. Just what is it you propose to explain to the email-capable ballot-inclined ICANN-interested? Can you state the issues? Can you state the issues not to the ICANN-aware, but to the first person on the ICANN-oblivious e-street? Droping the hard bits of policy formation on the least prepared people has less to recommend itself than your first proposal, and it has all of the religious baggage of demagogery. Have you considered just how much fun (not) writing the ballot statement that shifts the burden of disfunction and blame from the collective sets of shoulders of this WG, the NC, and the Board, to some absurdly marginal set of voters? What you've missed is that for better or worse (worse, as this is a long low-lubricant cluster-fuck), WG-C is _the_ deliberative body at present. Take a day or two off, read and reflect, there are sides here, pick yours and do your share of thinking before writing. We've a surfit of those, but they don't style themselves as really serious people. Try not to shift the blame to civilians, nor to look as if you've tried to do your homework when handing back an exam paper consisting of blanks. Add to the above: Message-ID: Message-ID: Kitakitamatsinopowaw, Eric P.S. Don't forget to count your ballots before casting them. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 13:33:10 +0900 From: "Robert F. Connelly" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed At 22:42 22-03-2000 -0500, Milton Mueller wrote: > > a simple constraint for gTLD my be that they are *not* trademarkable for > > the purpose of being a gTLD. Dear Milt: I am commenting on your comment on Rick Wesson's comment on somebody else's comment;-} I think you missed Rick's point, Milt. At least it is my point that the USPTO has already ruled that a top level domain does not designate the source of the goods, it is only a part of an address. An SLD may, under the right circumstances be trademarked. Here is the reference: EXAMINATION GUIDE NO. 2-99 September 29, 1999 MARKS COMPOSED, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, OF DOMAIN NAMES http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/notices/guide299.htm Regards, BobC - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've sawed this board off three times, and it's *still* too short". "Small choice between rotten apples." Dr. U.B. Bray ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 20:45:55 -0800 From: "Christopher Ambler" Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed That's not a ruling. - -- Christopher Ambler chris@the.web - -----Original Message----- From: owner-wg-c@dnso.org [mailto:owner-wg-c@dnso.org]On Behalf Of Robert F. Connelly Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 8:33 PM To: wgc Cc: Michael D. Palage Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Importance: High At 22:42 22-03-2000 -0500, Milton Mueller wrote: > > a simple constraint for gTLD my be that they are *not* trademarkable for > > the purpose of being a gTLD. Dear Milt: I am commenting on your comment on Rick Wesson's comment on somebody else's comment;-} I think you missed Rick's point, Milt. At least it is my point that the USPTO has already ruled that a top level domain does not designate the source of the goods, it is only a part of an address. An SLD may, under the right circumstances be trademarked. Here is the reference: EXAMINATION GUIDE NO. 2-99 September 29, 1999 MARKS COMPOSED, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, OF DOMAIN NAMES http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/notices/guide299.htm Regards, BobC - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've sawed this board off three times, and it's *still* too short". "Small choice between rotten apples." Dr. U.B. Bray ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:27:54 +0900 From: "Robert F. Connelly" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed At 23:51 22-03-2000 -0500, Milton Mueller wrote: >I know, I've seen this. But the PTO is talking about the .com, net and .org >world, not a world of 5,000 new TLDs, some of which are .ibm or .aol. Dear Milt: Sounds like a good reason not to contemplate domains of that type. Regards, BobC, who tries to stay within the two posting per day rule;-} ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:20:09 -0500 From: Jeff Shrewsbury Info Avenue Subject: Re: [wg-c] list rules Amen, Jon. js At 10:31 PM 3/22/00 -0500, Jonathan Weinberg wrote: > The list has had an explosion of traffic in the past few days. Not all of >the messages have been real helpful, and the total volume of them is >driving people batty and making the list a lot less useful as a discussion >forum. Further, a huge number of the messages have been generated by a >small number of people -- over the past four days, just three list members >have managed to post a combined total of over fifty messages. Once again, >a reminder: the rules of this list call for no more than *two posts per >day*. (Send three, even four, every so often, that's OK too. But what >we've seen just now is way beyond that.) So cut it out -- the list can't >function with this level of traffic. > >Jon > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:37:13 -0500 From: Jeff Shrewsbury Info Avenue Subject: Re: [wg-c] ICANN June meeting and new gTLDs Or perhaps it's because the reporter doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. js At 01:56 PM 3/22/00 -0800, Christopher Ambler wrote: >Jumping the gun a little? Aren't they a CORE member? Perhaps that explains >why they said that one of the domains was likely to be .nom. On the other >hand, perhaps they said that because they're intending to be a registry for >.nom? > >Are we having fun yet? > >-- >Christopher Ambler >chris@the.web > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Rothnie, Warwick" >To: >Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 1:49 PM >Subject: [wg-c] ICANN June meeting and new gTLDs > > >Mallesons Stephen Jaques >Confidential communication > >An Australian registrar for .com and .com.au, Melbourne IT, has been >reported in the local press as stating that ICANN's June meeting is expected >to approve 10 new gTLDs including three new categories, each of which may >have 2 or 3 new domains. The categories identified are "non-commercial", >commercial domains other than .com and chartered domains for members of >international professional and commercial organisations. The link to the >report is . > >Warwick A Rothnie >Partner >Mallesons Stephen Jaques Melbourne >Direct line (61 3) 9643 4254 >Fax (61 3) 9643 5999 > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:48:44 -0500 From: Harold Feld Subject: [wg-c] Funding for NGOs in Cairo (was: Chosing Initial Testbed) Jamie wrote: > There were quite a few. ACM, CPT, CPT, Digital Bridges and Common >Cause were among the US NGOs. There were others too from Korea and >Latin America. The Markle Foundation has a fund to support NGO travel >to these meetings. And, the NC constituency has its own mailing lists >too. Credit should be given where credit is due. Ford Foundation contributed a lot of money, and Ford and Markle jointly created the travel fund and gave the contribution to the Saltzman Foundation to ensure continued public representation at ICANN. Markle deserves credit for getting earlier and funding the election study, but Ford has also been making significant contributions. I suspect we will see more involvement from foundations like Markle, Ford, McCarthur, etc. as the policy implications of standards setting and technical coordination become increasingly important. Mark Cooper at CFA is fond of saying that policy can drive technology just as technology drives policy. A statement that pisses some engineers off no end. Harold ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 07:14:53 -0800 (PST) From: Rick H Wesson Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Milton, The context of my post is GENERIC TLDs and the potential testbed. I don't undertsant how any trademarked string fits with the context of GENERIC. OWNERSHIP is exactly what I am conserned with applying to GENERIC TLDs .imb. is certanly not GENERIC. regards, - -rick On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Milton Mueller wrote: > This debate just gets weirder and weirder. ICANN have just spent the last > two years making the world safe for trademark owners in the SLD space, and > now the geniuses in this WG say that when a string moves from one level of > DNS to the other it magically changes all its properties and becomes > untrademarkable. > > Why wouldn't this maxim apply to the SLD space? Those of you who are > concerned about the horrors of "ownership" of domain names, just what do you > think is occurring when courts of law and UDRP "arbitrators" take > registrations away from one person and give them to another on the basis of > trademark claims? > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Rick H Wesson" > > > > a simple constraint for gTLD my be that they are *not* trademarkable for > > the purpose of being a gTLD. > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 10:18:53 -0500 From: Milton Mueller Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed I agree strongly with Bret Fausett's post about why TLD proposals need to be linked to specific registry proposals. I would think it self-evident, for example, why labor unions should have real control over who runs .union. If that means "ownership," (and it does) so be it. Mark C. Langston wrote: > The registry MUST NOT own the TLD, and must not be allowed to even > infer that some ownership exists, or we'll just be creating problems > for everyone, and perpetual fiefdoms for a select few. There is no escape from ownership. Responsibility must be lodged somewhere. So when you say the registry does not "own" the TLD, you are simply saying that ICANN owns it. Is it better to have ICANN own the TLD and create a single, international, monopolistic, and relatively inacessible fiefdom, or would you prefer to have a diverse, heterogenous, and competing set of ownership relations, all of which act to constrain the power of ICANN? And please do not tell me that ICANN is "us," the embodiment of thte "Internet community," because both of us know better than that. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 07:52:04 -0800 From: "Roeland M. J. Meyer" Subject: RE: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed > The registry MUST NOT own the TLD, and must not be allowed to even > infer that some ownership exists, or we'll just be creating problems > for everyone, and perpetual fiefdoms for a select few. For numerous reasons, I disagree with this. It s a major source of problems today. Also, it doesn't solve the problems that you are concerned about. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 08:34:44 -0800 From: "Mark C. Langston" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed On Thu, Mar 23, 2000 at 10:18:53AM -0500, Milton Mueller wrote: > I agree strongly with Bret Fausett's post about why TLD proposals need to be > linked to specific registry proposals. I would think it self-evident, for > example, why labor unions should have real control over who runs .union. If > that means "ownership," (and it does) so be it. Ok, so which union organization gets granted the golden goose? UFW? AFL-CIO? Teamsters? UAW? Name any entity, and I'm fairly sure I could come up with at least two entities who would purport to be the 'correct' group to control it. Besides, this is irrelevant. All I proposed was: 1) A round in which TLD are proposed and selected, giving us a TLD pool. 2) A roung in which registries petition to control TLDs in that pool. In round 2, do you honestly think ICANN is going to give .union to some unknown entity? Or are you afraid that the entity that you believe 'should' control the TLD won't be aware of the process? If that's the case, the problem is not the procedure I outlined. The problem is one of communication. Perhaps the group you think should control the TLD doesn't want or can't handle control. What then? They farm it out to some 3rd party and forget about it, and that 3rd party starts doing all sorts of things with the TLD you hadn't intended. And since we've not come up with a solution for how to handle removing control of a TLD from a registry to date, that puts us in a tricky situation, no? - -- Mark C. Langston mark@bitshift.org Systems & Network Admin San Jose, CA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 100 10:16:37 -0400 (AST) From: John Charles Broomfield Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed (rehashing dead horses for the umpteenth time). > > > I personally don't see why AOL, with millions of customers, couldn't > > > have .aol. Or my AT&T couldn't use .att, if they wanted to. > > > > Because there is therefore no reasonable criteria by which you could > > restrict *any* TM holder from getting a TLD. > > Omigod! The name space might have to respond to user demand! The Horror!!! > Kent, you have already proven to our satisfaction that adding additional > TLDs to existing registries can be done at something close to zero marginal > cost. So what's the problem with this scenario? The problem is that this scenario (a flat namespace) is exactly what prompted creation of DNS. The flat namespace was hosts.txt namespace. If we look at the current namespace where ".com" has more names than everything else combined (how many million last count?), as far as size goes on a theoretical level, we can discount the existance of everything else and say that operationally the current namespace consists of one single TLD (ie ".com"). If you want to add everything at the root level, then you've already got the example (just happens that it has a ".com" on the end making it visually less sexy, but operationally it is the same) that your asking for. Thus, you don't need ANY expansion at all. Contradictory as it may seem, changing to an unlimited open root is very close to not changing at all, so why bother? Just argue for no change. > > > Why not permit every ISP with a million or more customers to have a > > > TLD of their choice? This could be a simple rule. I'm sure there > > > would be complaints, but would it cause any harm? It wouldn't hurt me. > > > > Wow. "It wouldn't hurt me." That's deep. I'm really encouraged that > > you are a consumer advocate. > > Nice rhetoric, but you didn't answer his question. If you don't like the > "million" threshold, lower it. The principle is the same. Why not? So, the first 100.000 arrivals get a domain name (a TLD) and for the rest it's tough luck. Imagine the outcry if you had tried to apply that argument to any TLD (sorry, only 100.000 registrations allowed in ".com"). Limiting in number but (for practical purposes) little else WOULD be considered restraint of trade. Also note that with an open and free for all root, suddenly the level at which running a registry becomes interesting becomes the registry for the root. Today we can see 3 levels of registry: - -the root (run for the moment on a technical basis by NSI, but with modifications/additions/deletions coming from ICANN after getting authorization from DOC/NSF). - -under the root we have the TLDs (NSI for com/net/org, different operators runnning all the ccTLDs and lets not forget GOV/EDU/MIL/INT) - -under each TLD, each domain holder runs their own registry for their own domain (or outsources it to an ISP or whatever). There isn't much business to be made by being the registrar for a domain under a TLD (ml.org was a good proof), so it's widely ignored, and it comes down to an outsourcing of operations (which is what companies that have their own domain do to have it operational: they outsource the management of the registry -the zone file- to an ISP, but the ISP doesn't decide what host names he's going to add in there, and if the domain owner doesn't like how the ISP is managing his zone-file he just moves off to another ISP). There is a very limited universe at the TLD level, and limitation means money to be made. For now it's too limited even for that, which is why we're having all these discussion, but even at its current limited state there ARE aprox 240 TLDs (even though -as I state above- 1 of these TLDs accounts for the majority of the space). Managing the root is not something (today) that has a great deal of technical changes (though having a set of stable root-servers is not as easy as some seem to think), so there are not lots of companies out there shouting that they want to run the legacy root (then again it can only be run by one single operator). If you open up the root, then everything just jumps up a level, suddenly all TLDs will be managed as SLDs are today, nobody would be interested in having an SLD (just as very few are interested in having domains under ml.org), and the operation of the root suddenly becomes exactly the same as the current operation of ".com". Caching goes out the window (theres a great question mark about its funcionality as such, but why let small details like that bother you?). And I can imagine the outcry about the one company running the registry for the root. The registrars still continue to do business of course as entities will still want domains (but without messy bits behind. After all, why would I want jbroom@outremer.com when I can have jbroom@outremer ?) Yours, John Broomfield. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 100 11:20:42 -0400 (AST) From: John Charles Broomfield Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Hi Bob, Thanks for the reference. VERY useful. IANAL IANAL IANAL IANAL IANAL IANAL IANAL!!!!! However, I *can* read, :-) Some extracts: "Just as the average person with no special knowledge recognizes "800" or "1-800" followed by seven digits or letters as one of the prefixes used for every toll-free phone number, the average person familiar with the Internet recognizes the format for a domain name and understands that "http," "www," and a TLD are a part of every URL. " "It is the perception of the ordinary customer that determines whether the asserted mark functions as a mark, not the applicant's intent, hope or expectation that it do so. See In re Standard Oil Co., 275 F.2d 945, 125 USPQ 227 (C.C.P.A. 1960)." - ---(that is a great quote, because I read it as indicating that even if NSI - ---managed to get a piece of paper from the uspto saying that they had a - ---trademark on ".com", as the ordinary person doesn't consider that a brand, - ---then tough, no valid trademark). VERY IMPORTANT QUOTE FOLLOWS: "D. Marks Comprised Solely of TLDs for Domain Name Registry Services If a mark is composed solely of a TLD for "domain name registry services" (e.g., the services currently provided by Network Solutions, Inc. of registering .com domain names), registration should be refused under Trademark Act §§1, 2, 3 and 45, 15 U.S.C. §§1051, 1052, 1053 and 1127, on the ground that the TLDwould not be perceived as a mark. The examining attorney should include evidence from the NEXIS® database, the Internet, or other sources to show that the proposed mark is currently used as a TLD or is under consideration as a new TLD. If the TLD merely describes the subject or user of the domain space, registration should be refused under Trademark Act §2(e)(1), 15 U.S.C. §2(e)(1), on the ground that the TLD is merely descriptive of the registry services." - ---Hey, this seems EXACTLY what we have been looking for for a while now. - ---The answer to the question "can you TM a TLD?". Answer (if I read - ---correctly): NO That should clear up a LOT of mess wrt blocking by one particular company on the basis of holding a TM for the proposed TLD... (Hint: They state they have been authorized by IANA to operate). Yours, John Broomfield. > At 22:42 22-03-2000 -0500, Milton Mueller wrote: > > > a simple constraint for gTLD my be that they are *not* trademarkable for > > > the purpose of being a gTLD. > > Dear Milt: I am commenting on your comment on Rick Wesson's comment on > somebody else's comment;-} > > I think you missed Rick's point, Milt. At least it is my point that the > USPTO has already ruled that a top level domain does not designate the > source of the goods, it is only a part of an address. An SLD may, under > the right circumstances be trademarked. > > Here is the reference: > > EXAMINATION GUIDE NO. 2-99 > > September 29, 1999 > > MARKS COMPOSED, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, OF DOMAIN NAMES > > http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/notices/guide299.htm > > Regards, BobC > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > "I've sawed this board off three times, and it's *still* too short". > > "Small choice between rotten apples." Dr. U.B. Bray > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 10:07:34 -0800 From: "Bret A. Fausett" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed Mark C. Langston wrote: > Besides, this is irrelevant. All I proposed was: > 1) A round in which TLD are proposed and selected, giving us a TLD pool. > 2) A round in which registries petition to control TLDs in that pool. Yesterday I stated a handful of reasons why this should be one step. If it helps to clarify what I was talking about, a good example of what such a proposal might look like is in sections 4-12 of: http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/19991023.NCwgc-report.html#Position Paper E E proposes a kind of chartered TLD, but there's no reason that the format used there couldn't be followed for open TLDs in a shared registry (e.g., along the lines of Section 7 of Position Paper D). It may be the case that there are many more proposals for new gTLDs than can fit in the 6-10 slots to be allocated, but all the better. Send them all to the NC, with a suggestion that selection take into consideration the WG's recommendations, popular user demand, minority interests, GA or constituency preferences/votes, registry model, confidence in registry operations, and certainly some other factors. I think it's an impossible task to expect to build "consensus" on what the first 6-10 new gTLDs should be, but I would expect that we could find consensus on what factors should be considered and what minimum standards should be imposed for gTLD names and registry operations. The NC would use those consensus factors to select among the proposals, and then forward a recommendation to the Board. We could certainly try to find consensus on which 6-10 should be implemented, and forward that to the NC, but I'm skeptical that it would prove fruitful. -- Bret ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 13:10:16 -0500 From: "Kevin J. Connolly" Subject: Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed "Mark C. Langston" wrote (03/23/00 11:34AM) >On Thu, Mar 23, 2000 at 10:18:53AM -0500, Milton Mueller wrote: >> I agree strongly with Bret Fausett's post about why TLD proposals need to be >> linked to specific registry proposals. I would think it self-evident, for >> example, why labor unions should have real control over who runs .union. If >> that means "ownership," (and it does) so be it. "Ownership" is a fuzzy concept. Lawyers conceptualize it as a bundle of rights. The question always is, "what rights are in the bundle?" For example, does the bundle include the unfettered right to sell the owned thing? Or is any such transfer constrained by certain conditions, such as (for example, the rights of registrants to SLD names). In other words, it does not matter whether we call the relationship between the delegee and the TLD ownership or hoopla-frobozz; what matters is, what rights are in the bundle? What duties come along with the bundle? Besides, simply saying that labor organizations should control .union falls short of answering the real questions. Given the jurisdictional fights between the IBEW and the CWA, it can't be said that all labor unions are good buddies. More than this, there are organizations outside the United States that do not remotely resemble American-style labor unions; should this mean that such organizations (e.g., eastern european craft guilds) should be excluded from participation in .union? It might, indeed, be simpler to let the ILO take charge of the registry and let its membership (or those who wish to do so) act as registrars. > >Ok, so which union organization gets granted the golden goose? UFW? >AFL-CIO? Teamsters? UAW? All based in the good ol USA. No reason to consider other worldviews, is there? > >Name any entity, and I'm fairly sure I could come up with at least two >entities who would purport to be the 'correct' group to control it. > >Besides, this is irrelevant. All I proposed was: > > >1) A round in which TLD are proposed and selected, giving us a TLD pool. > >2) A round in which registries petition to control TLDs in that pool. A logical extension of this idea is: (A) Process 1: identify the TLDs to be created (gawrsh, but I think the WG-C charter makes this part of _our_ job); we could take registry-operator proposals into account, but, ultimately, this hot potato is on our hands. (B) Process 2: solicit interest in operating these TLDs; (C) Process 3: reconcile/award registries. In the case mentioned (.union), I think it goes without saying that multiple organizations will present themselves. Why not resolve that tension by saying (to the set of all technically-qualified candidates) "set up a shared registration system (either on a coop or for-profit basis as you see fit) and all of you act as registrars. If you end up playing Ten Little Capitalists, we'll revisit the whole process in eighteen months and possibly award the registry to the surviving registrar, but until then, play nice and foster the growth of the Internet." [snip] >And since we've >not come up with a solution for how to handle removing control of a >TLD from a registry to date, that puts us in a tricky situation, no? Sez who we don't have a solution for removing control of a TLD from a registry? .com/.net/.org has already changed hands AT LEAST once. I say AT LEAST because the great root migration of 1998 demonstrates how easy it would have been to cut NSI out of the pie if only IANA, USC, and the DOC had stood up to The Company and its affiliates. That such was not done says nothing about the technical management of the DNS; it speaks volumes about the economic and political reality and the need for some backbone in this process, backbone which has, sadly, been lacking to date. WG-C's charter does not mandate that we develop a solution that will keep NSI and its new owner happy. Neither of these entities has any legitimate reason to expect the continuance of the com/net/sinecure, and none of those concerns should color our thinking about how to proceed with the restructuring of the DNS. Kevin J. Connolly The opinions expressed are those of the author, not of Robinson Silverman Pearce Aronsohn & Berman LLP This note is not legal advice. If it were, it would come with an invoice. As usual, please disregard the trailer which follows. ********************************************************************** The information contained in this electronic message is confidential and is or may be protected by the attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine, joint defense privileges, trade secret protections, and/or other applicable protections from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or reproduction of this com- munication is strictly prohibited. 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