RE: [Membership] Structure of 'at large' membership

[a@help.org]

Yes, the situation you discuss can be a problem.  However, this situation
does not cover all domain speculation or domain sales.  Often, it is simply
a generic name that someone may wish to purchase later.  For instance,
"beyond.com" was purchased through a broker.  I suspect the person who
initially bought it had no idea that Software.net would want to change their
name to beyond.com.  It was probably initially taken because it was an
interesting generic name.  This is much different than buying
"exxonmobil.com" in order to sell it specifically to the new exxon-Mobil
merged company.  What you are talking about is a trademark issue rather than
an issue that covers all domain sales.

Russ Smith
http://consumer.net



>Yes, it is , in my opinion , very different indeed!  Those who speculate
in gold, shares, silvers etc takes risks commensurate with the profits
they expect to gain.  If they make a mistake they can lose their pants.
I can't imagine any body losing their pants by hoarding a few domain
names.  Further, items such as godl,silver, land etc are general items
available to the public.  They become more valuable when they become
scarce.  However, a domain name very often become valuable when the
company or companies who are easily connected to that name(or may have
the same name)become established or well known to the market.  The
speculator usually try to sell the domain name back to them for large
sum of money.  This is what I believe to be wrong as the value of the
name was , very often, created by the companies who are targets of the
speculation!