RE: [council] NCUC statement on Approval Process for Registry Services

["Cade,Marilyn S - LGCRP" <mcade@xxxxxxx>]

Actually, I might just explain on Philip's initial comment.  The "typical 
motivations" of business uses are very broad, and first and foremost, involves 
using the names that we, as business users, register to communicate with 
customers, market products, provide customer service, provide actual products 
to users, manage our own internal communications, etc. etc. :-)
 
One motivation of some business users, from time to time, is to take defensive 
registration, when compelled to do so, to ensure against customer/user 
confusion and misleading communications, trademark infringement, protect 
against misuse of a domain name that is similar to a service or trademark use, 
etc. Bad faith is one critical concern of business users. But their interests 
are varied, just as their business models, strategy, and "reach" and 
products/services are. :-) 
 
As to ICANN's role in ensuring a stable and predictable environment in the 
Internet's technical functioning, we may have differences about how to achieve 
that, or the exact scope, but it is a primary concern to business users. 
 

Marilyn S. Cade 
AT&T Law & Government Affairs 
1120 20th Street, NW, Suite 1000N 
Washington, DC 20036 

202-457-2106v 
281-664-9731 e-fax 
202-360-1196 c 
mcade@xxxxxxx 

-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Sheppard [mailto:philip.sheppard@xxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 3:26 AM
To: council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [council] NCUC statement on Approval Process for Registry Services


Marc,
while I think there is much to commend in the NCUC statement on the registry 
services I feel impelled to make one remark to this part of your statement:
 
" we note that ICANN invested most of its effort in protecting trademarks ... 
interests, and has shown very little interest in protecting consumers and 
users".
 
ICANN's UDRP is all about protecting consumers and users. The typical 
motivation for a brand owner to seek ownership of a domain name is to prevent 
the bad faith use of the domain name. Bad faith use includes consumer fraud and 
deception. There maybe individual cases where other motivations are apparent 
but please do note that the fundamental reason for trademarks at all is as a 
guarantee of origin - and that is a consumer as well as a brand-owner benefit. 
 
Philip