[ICANN-EU] Re: questions for candidates

[Marc Lehmann <pcg@goof.com>]

On Mon, Aug 14, 2000 at 02:10:41PM +0200, Marc Schneiders <marc@venster.nl> wrote:
> I am not sure all owners who run a root server (more than we know!) will
> want to cooperate.

Well, not every country uses the same conflict resolve rules, either. Just
ignore them. What ICANN controls, ICANN controls, no more, no less (for
the moment, that is ;).

> > Important however is, that the above model is *not* something I would
> > advocate to do. 
> 
> Well, then comment is rather needless, isn't it? :-)

Insert a "neccessarily" before "advocate". Before I advocate this I would
need more data, of course, which is what I wanted to say in the first
place ;->

> It would involve
> changes to nameserver configurations, to say the least.

Software, yes, configurations, no (it of course depends on what one calls
"configuration"9.

> I doubt there is a simple way to let named/bind do this counting.

I think it would be a couple of additional lines at most. Even a logfile
(to be analyzed later) would suffice.

> Only nobody looked at the webpages or sent mail to it? Not in use? Not in
> demand maybe, but in use.

This is one of the problems indeed. However, I would happily declare a
domain that nobody externally uses dead, and not worth polluting global
namespace with.

> So taking such a domain from the owner would be wrong. Free speech does
> not mean anyone has to listen to what you say. But if nobody does, it
> does not mean you can be shut up...

(if nobody listens there is no need to shut you up). This is going in
circles. I do not advocate free speech at all costs (e.g. when unfoundedly
denouncing others!), however I don't see this as a problem of free speech.

If somebody has a webserver with his own personal opinions and nobody
accesses it, what's the point in having it in the first place (this is for
nobody = ZERO).

As often in the real world, it all depends on the exact value of "0" ;) If
you oppose this idea you should come up with a better idea. Certainly free
speech is certainly much more under pressure when somebody takes their
(widely used) domain away by paying lawyers to find shortcomings in the
law to take it away.

> Great! We are on the same line. I would not mind enforcing the nameserver
> etc. rule, even though it is no great help. 

Definitely it will not be a great help in the near future. But I don't
think anything that can be done in the near future will even come near a
"solution".

> smarter. There are third-level domains and they can be used
> profitably. And I mean this literally. Think: shoes.cheap.com,
> cars.cheap.com etc.

lehmann.18-20.mathystr.suedstadt.karlsruhe.de.families

Well :) You will need this much information to be conflict-less. Yes, I
think making better use of domain names will help alliviete the problem as
well, but I don't think it will solve it for the not-so-near future.

this does not mean that one should pursue this road further, but note that
this can only be done through force, i.e. if you can get allmy.eu.org but
the eu.org maintainrs would rather like you to have allmy.de.eu.org then
guess what will happen?

> In theory there are so many domains possible: a-z, 0-9, plus -, is 39
> characters.

But people want "the best" address. Ruling out my overlong domain above,
and ruling out rtf6-z3d2-cg.person as well.

> level domains have 256 max.). There is much more possible with this, even
> on the level of pronouncable domain names

But there are not enough ways to spell "lehmann" to accomodate all lehmans
even in my town. Again -> conflicts.

> It is OK to think big. But it is not necessary at all. The number of names
> about which a potential TM conflict might arise is limited

Limited, but veeeery large. Not counting non-TM conflicts.

> are applied correctly. Trademark law does not allow you to claim the
> absolute right over a common word, or a name for that matter.

In germany I can easily apply for the trademark "food". No problems at
all. If you are ingenious you can even apply for letters (try "T" like
Telekom ;)

> website that has Easy in its name against other sites with Easy in their
> name is really ridiculous.

Ridicuolous, but probably legal.

> Get rid of this type of nonsense. Reform the UDRP rules a little, and
> make sure that they are applied as they are written and intended and not
> stretched to mean anyting to please the IP and TM people.

Hmm... Is it that easy? How about the many families with the same
name? Just FCFS is utterly unfair.

So, as a summary, all you said is nice to do, and are certainly in the
category "useful" or "necessary". I don't think any of these (or even all
of them), however, come even close to solving the problem. trademark is
not the only concenr (for me). Being fair to everybody is.

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