All Entries in the "Domain Names" Category

Does ICANN’s TLD Policy Create Trademark Conflicts?

When the Internet was very young, all you had to do to get a domain name was call a man named Jon Postel, and ask for it. Things have changed greatly with the popularity of the Internet. Now the competition for a good, short, generic domain name is fierce. If you want a domain name in the popular .com namespace, you have to settle for a long, sometimes confusing, domain name.

ICANN has been using a process of ?rounds? to introduce new tlds. When they do create these new tlds, they are generic in nature, like .info or .biz. This creates trademark conflicts. Many companies hold the same word as a trademark, such as Apple Records and Apple Computers. Both are legal trademarks. Both have the legal right to use the word apple to sell their respective products and services.

So which one has the legal rights to apple.com or apple.biz? What if I start a company tomorrow called Apple Printing Services and get a trademark on the word apple to sell printing services? Do I not then have equal rights to use apple.com or apple.net as my domain name?

If ICANN would open the TLD market, so that any company with the technical expertise and the financial capability, could start a new TLD, we would have more option like apple.computer, apple.music, apple.printer. TLDs like .lyr, .atty, .cpa, would crop up. This would help eliminate trademark conflicts.

First come, first serve, in the demand for domain names was the method used and seemed fair when namespace was less congested. Now, if we are going to insure that future generations of people, who are not even on the Internet yet, or who have not even started their business yet, will have the opportunity to get domain names they want, we must create more tlds. ICANN claims there is no demand for new TLDS.

I disagree. Demand is far from being met. It is not fair business practice to have few TLDs where a few companies/people get short one word domain names while the rest must settle for two and in most cases three word domain names. By limiting space with few TLDs, ICANN makes the decision that businesses that were in existence at a certain point in time shall have an advantage over any business created at a later time.

As a city grows, more streets get paved and more buildings get built allowing for more businesses to get good locations, more corner lots if you will. As name space expands ICANN wants businesses to continue to build upward and not outward. They leave new businesses the equivalent of existing on the third and fourth levels Vs having a ground-floor storefront.

Cities grow outward to allow for more development. TLD space needs to grow outward to meet the same demand. Cities that stifle development and that are not business-friendly find their economy in ruin before too long. Cities that do their best to offer more development opportunities to businesses i.e. corner lots, breaks in certain costs, etc., prosper.

It would be uncommon for a city to tell a new business, ?nope can build on that lot, you have to build onto existing buildings above your competitors, so that they have the ground floor and your customers must walk past your competitors to get to where you are.? That is the analogy. If you own design.com already, I must get something like webdesign.com (a 2nd floor location), the next business must get something like websitedesign.com, (3rd floor), the next few businesses can share the 4th floor with greatwebsitedesign.com, websitedesignplanet.com, etc. Others will get the 5th floor with even longer names as new businesses come to the web.

You might say well they only need their business name for their website and that should be easy to get. I would answer that many businesses have the same name and in addition to that, generic keywords in domain names are an advantage to only having your business name as a domain name. People are not searching the web for you, but they do search for what service or product you sell.

ICANN is currently forcing an unfair disadvantage to new business owners and to people new to the web by not allowing them to get good, short domain names for their personal or business use. Not allowing new tlds to be created is an unfair business practice and a restraint to free trade. It is also anti-free enterprise because they are telling me I cannot go into the domain name selling business and that only a few businesses they have selected can do so. They may also be in violation of laws written to avoid monopolies.

Chris McElroy has been an advocate for domain name owners and individual users of the Internet since 1995. He participates in working groups, mailing lists, and forums, that deal with issues regarding domain names, IP Number allocation, and the DNS.

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Is ICANN Violating Free Enterprise Principles?

Message to ICANN: Let those who want to create a tld, simply register it with ICANN.

If the tld is not already taken, if they have the technical capability to mange the tld, and they have the desire to market domain names on that tld, then let them do so.

It should be similar to the registering of a domain name, except on a higher level, with the added technical requirements. ICANN should be sort of an uber-registry for tlds.

It would be ludicrous for a domain name restrar like go daddy or enom to ask you for a business plan, or a non-refundable application fee, before allowing you to register a domain name. It would be ridiculous for a registrar to have “rounds” of domain name releases of names “they chose” in advance.

Okay, this month, go daddy will be allocating cheaperwebhosting.com, doggrommingmadeeasy.net, and virtualinternetwebnetwork.net. We will be taking applications and public comment during the month of february. We will then spend another month reviewing the applicants business plans to decide who we will allocate the domain name to. If you are not approved to manage the domain name you apply for, your application fee will be held by go daddy until further notice.

Some people will say that is not a good analogy, but it is a perfect analogy. Here is why. If info.com was still available and I registered it. I could then start selling subdomains like car.info.com, computer.info.com, icann.info.com or any other subdomain someone wished to purchase from me. The subdomain is one dot removed from the domain name the same as the domain name is one dot removed from the tld.

There is no longer any reason to believe ICANN is doing anything other than restricting free enterprise and free trade by not opening up the market for tlds. It is no longer acceptable that ICANN should be the one to decide which tlds will or will not be created nor is it acceptable that ICANN gets to choose who can or cannot run a tld.

Do you present a businesss plan to the city you live in before they allow you a business license? No.

Does the city ask you to prove you are financially stable before issuing you a business license? No, as long as you pay the registration fee.

If you apply for a business license to open a clothing store, does the city ask how you will run your clothing store or if you have the necessary expertise to run a clothing store? No.

Does the city think you will hurt them economically if your clothing store goes out of business? No, it’s none of their business.

Is the city concerned that there may not enough demand for yet another clothing store? No, again none of their business.

ICANN not allowing me, or anyone else in the world, to create a tld of our choice in any language we choose, is a blatant violation of our rights. In many countries, America among them, the right to free enterprise still exists. ICANN is denying me that right as an American citizen and doing so when even their own organization exists under American law.

There are no needs for auctions or rounds or anything else. If you want to run a tld, then you register it and start selling domain names. If you fail, you fail, just as in any other business venture you take on.

Artificially restricting namespace to make a few business IP interests happy has to stop.

Chris McElroy has been an advocate for the rights of domain name owners and individuals who use the Internet since 1995 and is currently advocating that ICANN open up the TLD market.

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Is Your Domain Name Property or just a Service?

This has been a debate on the General Assembly Mailing List of which I’m a member for years. It has been asked in the courts for a number of years as well. Is a domain name real property or is it just a service provided by registries through registrars?

Courts have gone both ways on the subject, sometimes finding that it is real property in some cases and in others finding that it isn’t.

I’ve been a member of the General Assembly, the former DNSO mailing lists, the TLDa (TLD owners) and other groups for some time. We have for the most part always accepted that domain names are real property.

This was posted on CircleID.com

Creditor Can Execute Against Domain Name Where Registry is Located: Office Depot v. Zuccarini

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling in Office Depot v. Zuccarini [Scribd link], agreeing that a creditor may levy against a domain name in the jurisdiction where the domain name registry is located. The decision is significant for two reasons. First, it affirms (or reaffirms) that domain names are property subject to the claims of creditors. Second, it allows creditors to proceed against domain names where the registry is located, thus allowing creditors to proceed against domain names in one proceeding and more importantly levy against domain names located abroad (where the registry is located in the United States). Overall, this makes getting at a domain name much easier for creditors.

Here is more about court cases involving whether a domain name is property or not from DomainNews.com

I was up late last night cruising through the 44 page docket from the case involving the 141 gambling domain names seized by the state of Kentucky.  This is a landmark case in my opinion and I wanted to read some of the fine print.  It’s pretty clear that this case will be setting some major precedent regarding jurisdiction and domain name use, but there was something else that caught my eye in the document. The groups involved in the case made several points in their efforts to have the case dismissed, but a discussion on domain names being considered property is the one that made me look twice.

The court discusses the issue of domains as property on about page 12 of the docket.

“The Opposing Groups and Lawyers . . . collectively assert that domain names are akin to a telephone number or a business or residential address only; that domain names are but a combination of letters and numbers, which serves as a mnemonic aid, nothing more. They argue that domains are not property, but are rights in a service contract.”

The docket continues for 3 pages discussing this argument and the court reaches the final conclusion

“the Defendants 141 Domain Names are property, and therefore subject to this Court’s in rem jurisdiction or to possible civil forfeiture”

t’s no surprise that the court ruled that domains are property.  What is surprising is who was among this “Opposing Groups and Lawyers”.  According to page 4 of the docket Network Solutions (NSI) and the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) were lumped in to this group.   The ICA, a group consisting of mostly domainers and domain companies, and NSI, a domain name registrar have joined with other gambling industry groups such as PPA, IGC, and IMEGA to present arguments in this case.  Recognizing these entities are not actuallyplaintiffs defendants, the court grouped them all together and classified them as “Opposing Groups and Lawyers” and did provide for their views to be considered. These views are expressed in this case as “domains are not property”.

What do you think? Are domain names actual property or just a service provided to you just like your phone service or services by utility companies?

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New gTLDs Will Not Impact Trademark Owners Significantly

ICANN, (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), is the body that chooses what new TLDs will or will not be introduced. A TLD is the part of the domain name that goes after the dot. dot com, dot org and dot net are all TLDs as is dot biz, dot info and dot mobi.

A gTLD is a generic TLD like dot com, dot net and dot org. They have also approved sTLDs (special TLDs) like dot museum and dot aero. The whole system of choosing the TLDs they approve is screwed up and it’s done on purpose.

It would be very simple for anyone to surf the web and find whatever they want if the TLDs read like a phone book. dot cpa, dot atty or dot lawyer or dot attorney, dot autos or dot cars, dot appliances, dot cellphones, etc.

There are no technical reasons not to have hundreds of TLDs that make perfect sense to users. It would also reduce the number of trademark vs domain name disputes.

Example: Nissan.cars would not conflict with Nissan.music which might be owned by a guy with the last name of Nissan who has a band. As long as the music guy didn’t sell cars, users would not be confused, therefore no trademark issues.

By convincing ICANN to restrict the number of TLDs and by ICANN only approving com, net, org, mobi, biz, info, museum, aero, pro, etc. corporations can reduce the competition online. They can enforce trademarked names against people who are actually not intentionally infringing on trademarks.

Keeping the namespace limited also creates a false shortage of domain names. If they approved a lot more TLDs there would be less trademark issues to resolve and there would be a lot more competition online making domain names even cheaper to register and allowing people to find a domain name in a space that makes sense, like SwindleScrewumandCheatem.lawfirm

IP attorneys that work for these large corporations would like you to believe that trademark infringement through the use of domain names costs them millions of dollars each year. It might, but that’s only because the attorneys make a ton of dough pursuing claims of trademark infringement even when there is none.

I found this at CircleID.com

Study Suggests Introduction of New gTLDs Will Cost Less than $.10 for Each Trademark Worldwide

Minds + Machines reports: “A quantitative analysis of UDRP data for all open generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) concludes that the introduction of new gTLDs will result in approximately 316 new cases of cybersquatting, and that the resultant cost to trademark holders, overall, will be $870,000 per year—less than less than $.10 for each trademark registered worldwide, or about $.44 per trademark registered in the United States. The data show that cybersquatting correlates to registration volume across all open gTLDs, not to the number of gTLDs, but is more prevalent in .com.” A downloadable PDF of this study is available here.

The intellectual property argument against approving new TLDs is just as weak as ICANN’s claims that it would make the Internet unstable.

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Domain Name Parking Services

If you have a lot of domains that are not developed yet, you should be parking them somewhere that might make you some money with adsense or affiliate ads.

You can install a wordpress blog on them and write a few posts with your adsense or affiliate ads in place.

You can park them with GoDaddy and get some of the adsense revenue.

You can put up just one page with some original content on it.

Anything is better than just paying for the domain name every year until you finally get around to developing it.

My question for the day is, do you park your domain names anywhere and what domain name parking services do you recommend?