Re: [IFWP] Market Structure Failure

[Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>]

jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Greg Skinner wrote:

>> If I understand the ORSC position, the problem is a lack of gTLDs.
>> The more you create, the less problem you have with trademarks,
>> because for every trademarked name that exists, you have a TLD to put
>> it in.

>  THis would be impossible I believe or at least improbable.  But as I
> understand the ORSC position, your statement doesn't sound
>accurate, but that should be answered by the ORSC for better clarity.

Perhaps I have misstated the ORSC position, but from what's been written
so far, it seems the drive to create more gTLDs comes from the belief
that you can create enough gTLDs to reduce significantly, if not eliminate
the number of name conflicts that exist today.  These name conflicts arise
because their are many organizations with a given name, but only a few
can be assigned that name in the limited number of gTLDS available today.

In addition, there have been other gTLDs that have been proposed, such
as a .per TLD for personal registrations, an .xxx TLD for adult sites,
etc.

No one seems to know just how many gTLDs need to be added in order to
minimize the number of name conflicts.  Furthermore, adding thousands
of TLDs at once does not seem to have popular support among the
Internet community.  So for now, only a handful of TLDs will be added
at a time.  How does that significantly reduce the number of name
conflicts?  How long will it be before the number of TLDs is high
enough that the likelihood of name conflict is small?

>> Also, the TM interests do not seem happy at the prospect of being
>> forced to register in multiple TLDs (possibly paying inflated
>> prices from cybersquatters) to protect their marks.

> THey don't have to pay the cybersquatters anything.  So I again
> don't see your point here either.

The companies who want their name in any TLD (or for that matter, any
domain suffix) have to pay (or sue) the cybersquatters who've bought
it.  That's what I meant.

>> Is this decision ultimately going to be decided based on politics
>> or not? 

> Good question. But remember the old political adage, MONEY is the
> mothers milk of politics.  Whomever spends the most, the most
> wisely, gets their way.

Well, this is the reason that I gave the Van Jacobson TCP slow-start
solution to Internet congestion as an example, because it only cost a
few minutes of programmer time per TCP implementation, as opposed to
millions of dollars in network infrastructure.

--gregbo