Re: Suggestions (Re: [wg-c] Schwimmer Post From Last Week )

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

> I don't see why the suggestion that commercial interests refrain from
> registering their domain names in TLDs other than those allocated
> specifically for their purposes would upset anyone.

While I'm not a pro-mark person in these debates, if I were advising a
client, I'd tell him/her to get the name of the mark in every TLD
everwhere (including those in other root systems).

The relatively small cost of buying up the names in all the TLDs sure
beats the contingency cost of having a damaged or destroyed mark.

As an attorney I'd recommend that one not put any faith whatsoever in TLD
charters or categories unless those charters and categories were backed up
by a law passed by my client's national legislature.

And even if category TLD's had strength, I can't let the safety of my mark
be dependent on the vigilance of the TLD by its operator - if a TLD starts
being used beyond it's charter, it's my mark that is placed at risk.

These are, of course, the same reasons why mark owners don't want new TLDs
in the first instance.

From my perspective, charters or categorized TLDs, are mere placebos.

I personally believe we ought to be adding new TLDs, lots of 'em.  But I
don't want to offer a false hope to mark owners (of which I am one) that
there is some magic escape from the obligation of global policing that
will be derived from charters/categories.

		--karl--