Re: [registrars] RE: PDP Dec 05: Reserved Names Working Group: response needed

["Marcus Faure" <faure@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi John,

that's at least 500$ worth of lawyer's expertise in your
statement.. Shall I ask ICANN to send you a wire?

I think that basically we share the same view, but focus on
different aspects of the issue. While "my" aspect is maybe not the
focus of this thread, I agree with your observations and I believe we
both shed a good amount of tears over the quality of the reserved
names list, which btw everybody including ICANN regards to be
insufficient. A minimal requirement would be to extend the reserved
names list with how the locals call their country including the
respective IDN variants. 

Regarding painkillers, I am sorry to hear that you are not able to get
them in the U.S., although your country is much more relaxed about
over-the-counter stuff than we are. Then again, a visit to our
neighbour The Netherlands may provide you with what you need.

Yours,
Marcus



> 
> >I do not have a problem with a company using tld.com for their 
> >own website. I do have a problem with a "registrar" offering 3rd 
> >level registrations under tld.com, especially if they tell you that 
> >this is the way the internet is structured, 
> 
> Marcus, I do not disagree with the observation that there may be
> questionable practices.  My only question is whether this is a basis for a
> categorical exclusion of classes of domain names from registration to anyone
> on a planet of 6.5 billion people, because an ICANN working group knows
> what's best.  If the question comes down to whether there is a problem with
> whether one does X or does Y with a domain name, then the question is one
> step removed from whether everyone must therefore be prohibited from
> registering said domain name.  Whether any particular domain name may be
> used abusively is a consideration that applies to all domain names.
> 
> "SexualPredators.tld", for an organization combating sexual predators, would
> probably pass the Marcus "problem" test.  The same name, used as an online
> meeting place and resource directory for sexual predators, would probably
> not pass the Marcus "problem" test.  My question is whether as a policy
> matter we need to prohibit registration of the domain name to anyone and
> everyone, on the ground that "someone" may do something "bad".
> 
> In the immediate context of the "Reserved Names" policy, there are
> substantial effects.  Leaving aside the ccTLDs for a moment, the "Reserved
> Names" have traditionally included the initials of various ICANN constituent
> organizations.  
> 
> For example, the strings "ASO" and "IAB" were prohibited from being
> registered in the 2000 round of new TLD's, e.g. .info, and are mindlessly
> propagated to each new TLD.
> 
> Now, the following are US registered trademarks to various companies:
> 
> 2517102 	ASO 	
> 2542704 	ASO 	
> 2654072 	ASO/PARTNERS 	
> 2539256 	ASO 	
> 2198279 	ASO 	
> 2045578 	ASO COUNTER NEWS 
> 1619707 	ASO 	
> 
> 3203966 	IAB
> 3156668 	IAB
> 3102783 	IAB 
> 1401532 	IAB
> 
> You cannot on the one hand say that you don't have a problem with companies
> registering their names and marks as domain names, and simultaneously
> support a policy which says, to the owners of these trademarks, "You will
> never be able to register your trademark as a domain name in a new TLD."
> 
> But that is precisely what the Reserved Names Working Group is doing.  Which
> is why I noted that one has to separate "potential for abuse" which is a
> use-based issue from "zero legitimate use" which is a reason for a flat-out
> exclusionary policy.
> 
> Do we care whether BIO2 International, Inc., the owner of US Reg. TM. No.
> 2539256 for "ASO" in connection with "stabilized oxygen for use as a dietary
> supplement" is able to register their trademark as a domain name in some new
> TLD?  
> 
> Do we care whether Internal Audit Bureau Inc., the owner of US TM Reg. No.
> 3203966 for "IAB" in connection with financial services is able to someday
> register IAB.finance?
> 
> No, we don't, and they are not likely even aware of ICANN's existence, and
> certainly not aware that there is a working group that is in the process of
> forever banning them from registering a domain name.
> 
> If you want to get on the telephone with the CEO's of these companies (and
> there are quite a few among the various "reserved names" under
> consideration), and explain this situation to them, I'm sure they would have
> some choice words for this sort of policy nonsense.  If you let me listen,
> I'll pay for the telephone calls.
> 
> The annual International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, which has
> been around for longer than the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
> Numbers, will NEVER be able to register "icann.event", solely due to the
> orgy of self-dealing which characterizes ICANN policy making.  In a world in
> which the string "ICANN" is legitimately used by different parties, I guess
> it is fortunate to be the "ICANN" which can absolutely ban the other ICANN's
> from registering a domain name henceforth and forevermore.  It is good to be
> king.
> 
> The absolute best and most effective way to prevent abuse of domain names is
> for us simply to declare a moratorium on registration of domain names.  If
> people can't register them, they can't abuse them.  As an added bonus,
> everyone on this list will then have more time to spend with their families.
> My sense is that this is just not the correct constituency to advance "more
> reasons why people shouldn't register domain names", which are so eloquently
> stated by those whose business does not relate to the registration of domain
> names.
> 
> At the very least, the Reserved Names Working Group should find someone who
> can spell. Take a look at the .info reserved names here:
> 
> http://www.afilias.info/whois_search/reserved_names
> 
> It includes, and included the link because it is simply hard to believe,
> "bosnaihercegovina".
> 
> Now, I don't know where BosnAI is, but I have heard of a place called
> BosnIA.  Surely enough, you cannot register bosnaihercegovina.info, because
> it was duly reserved by Afilias.
> 
> Did that stop a cybersquatter from registering bosnIAhercegovina.info?
> Nope.  No doubt the Balkans will again lapse into several more generations
> of armed conflict as a consequence. So again, at the very least, when this
> policy is finally made, perhaps we might try to avoid putting illiterate
> nitwits in charge of implementing it.  
> 
> The .in registry did the same thing:
> 
> http://www.inregistry.in/policies/IN_Reserved_Names-Feb2005.pdf
> 
> because the same stupid typographical error is being propagated through
> generations of Reserved Name lists.
> 
> Maybe the next time they inadvertently ban growers of miniature Japanese
> trees from registering domain names.  But if someone figures out that
> "Cashmere" is merely an alternate spelling of "Kashmir", then we'll have to
> quit buying wool clothing on the internet under an appropriate domain name.
> 
> There is no end to how stupid this is, and there is a distinct
> Anglo-centrism to the country list.  "Switzerland" is excluded in each of
> its four official languages, plus English because, well, you know, everyone
> *should* speak English after all.  You can register "Switzerland" in any
> other language, though, while some countries only get to exclude their name
> in English.  Absent an IDN system, for example, "Morocco" cannot be excluded
> in Arabic.  So instead it is excluded in English, while the other dominant
> language version corresponding to what is actually spoken in that country -
> (i.e. "Maroc" in French) - is free for anyone to register in new TLDs.
> 
> To go from "dumb" to "dumber" - all of these English designations are
> excluded from the .cat TLD, EVEN THOUGH IT IS A TLD SPECIFIC TO A LANGUAGE
> OTHER THAN ENGLISH.  
> 
> What DIDN'T they exclude from .cat?  The names of these countries IN
> CATALAN.  So, let me get this straight.  You can't register "Switzerland" in
> .cat because (a) it is not a Catalan word, and (b) it is the name of a
> country that doesn't even call itself "Switzerland" in ANY of its official
> languages, but it is on a "magic list".  You CAN, however, register "Suïssa"
> in .cat because (a) it IS a Catalan word, and (b) it is not on the "magic
> list", even though it is Catalan for "Switzerland". 
> 
> Please, tell me where to find the medication required to think that policy
> makes sense.  These types of drugs are not legal in the United States.
> 
> Sooner or later, some country is going to change its name to "Porn", and
> growth of the Internet will come to a dead stop.  (And I wouldn't doubt that
> certain wild-carded ccTLD operators haven't thought about it.  You know who
> you are.)
> 
> As Tim pointed out, this sort of thinking only leads to temporally-based
> irregularities, because successive rounds of new TLDs have to have different
> exclusions applied to them, instead of a consistent policy across the board.
> One can maintain com.info, but not info.com.  Is there a useful purpose
> served by that?  Another odd example is that "DNSO" is duly reserved by
> Neulevel in .biz, but not by Afilias in .info.  Of course, the ICANN DNSO no
> longer exists, and the newer GNSO was already registered in .com, .net, and
> .org by a troublemaker before the ICANN GNSO was formed.  Nonetheless,
> "DNSO" is still supposed to be excluded.
> 
> Techies are used to checking a theorem against limiting cases.  The end
> point here, projecting forward, is that when the root zone is as large as
> the .com zone, it will be easy to obtain a new TLD, since there will not be
> any likelihood of populating it.  (I believe the growth/exclusion condition
> here defines a logarithmic growth curve, but the point is that each new TLD
> has less utility by one domain name)  It may not be the most realistic
> projection, but from a high-level perspective I just can't see us lining up
> to say, "I prefer logarithmic limits on growth curves."  But that's what
> this policy imposes as a limiting condition.
> 
> Some things do make sense.  For example, the .eu registry reserved names
> list (http://www.eurid.eu/images/Documents/Blocked_names/1%20blocked.txt)
> thoughtfully included "1000-jaehriges-reich".  Irrational policies made by
> unaccountable authorities do indeed have a limited life span.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>