Re: questions for candidates

[Marc Lehmann <pcg@goof.com>]

On Sun, Aug 13, 2000 at 04:38:42PM +0200, Andreas Fügner <Andreas.Fuegner@lizenz.com> wrote:
>    ICANN decided to create new TLDs. I think the registration for new
>    TLDs should follow the established procedure of "First come - First
>    served".  There are many companies where one can register.

ICANN so far decided to add new TLDs in a slow process, one at a time. "First
come - First serverd" does IMHO not apply to such a model, where introduction
of new TLD's is a long process.

Of course, ICANN can change this, but adding new TLD's on a rush is
serving nobody :(

>        re:     trademark - domain conflicts
>    I support the idea of "first come - first served". With trademark
>    ownership comes the duty to protect it.

"Give me a gun" ;) How does one defend one's domain? The only place where
this can happen is a national court, and national courts decide different
in different countries.

At the moment, I can see no obvious better policy than FCFS (except
sharing, which is another matter), the problem I see with it is that it's
not usable in practise, except maybe putting registries physically under
different law, finally leading to splitted networks.

One might try thinking about a way of decising "usage" of a domain - for
example, most registries now require "connected domains", which just means
that some "speculant" puts up a web page with "soon here will be the new
xxx" or even: "if you are interested in buying this domain...".

Maybe, juts maybe it would be more worthwhile to think about was to
decide wether a domain is actually *in use* (and criteria like working
nameservers, at leats one a record, working webpage (beware!) all fail,
obviously).

>    protection mechanisms" in the real worldand they are unnecessary on
>    the internet.

Maybe. That doesn't stop courts from applying trademark laws, however. The
internet cannot be a right-free area, as much as people might want that.
There is no such thing as a truly international trademark law, so the
first step would be to create such a beast.

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