Against Applying URS to .Net

["Michael H. Berkens, President Worldwide Media, Inc." <mike@xxxxxxxx>]

We hereby urge ICANN not to impose the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS), a 
proposal still under consideration for new gTLD's,  to the .Net registry 
through the contract renewal process. 

It is not yet clear what the final form of the URS will take, what cost will 
be, what the burden of proof on a complainant will be, whether a complainant 
will be provided with first option to acquire a suspended domain,  what the 
form of the trademark clear house maybe or look like or who would even operate 
it.

The transfer option in would make this proposed $300, 500-word complaint, 
single examiner URS procedure the functional equivalent of the UDRP which 
offers a far higher level of procedural and substantive due process to domain 
registrants a system in which the complaint is already successful in more than 
85% of all cases.

The imposition of URS on .Net is not a trivial technical detail of the proposed 
contract but a major policy change for one of the leading gTLDs and .Net is the 
third largest TLD.

It is fundamentally unfair to impose the possibility of URS actions on .Net 
registrants who registered domain names long before such a system was even 
proposed at the new gTLD level.

Potential registrants at new gTLDs will acquire domains there with clear 
advance notice that they will be subject to the URS and other new RPMs and have 
the opportunity to make the decision to register, or not, on an informed basis.

Registrants of .Net, domains on the other hand, have acquired their .Net 
domains with the understanding that they could only lose the use of their 
domains, or see them involuntarily transferred, if they registered and used 
their domains in violation of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

These domains are valuable intangible assets and The rights of .Net registrants 
require just as much respect as the rights of trademark holders.

It is unacceptable that domain holders should be exposed to the substantial new 
risk of losing access to or even possession of their domains through adoption 
of a yet-to-be-finalized and thoroughly untested URS supplement to the UDRP 
without the benefit of a balanced and considered policy process preceding any 
such decision.

If the URS can be incorporated within the .Net contract this year it will 
certainly set a powerful precedent for the inclusion of URS in the .Com 
registry contract when it comes up for renewal in 2012. 

If trademark interests are able to achieve this result through the gTLD 
contract renewal process we suspect they will have considerably less incentive 
to participate in a meaningful and balanced UDRP reform process that addresses 
the legitimate concerns of all parties, and may even work to subvert it.

Combined with the creation of a trademark clearinghouse, the URS proposal is 
especially troubling.

Currently WIPO has set up what it has called the Global Brands Database 
(http://www.wipo.int/branddb/en/index.jsp) which already has over 626,000 
entries.

The name of the "Global Brands Database" would indicate that only true famous 
brands known throughout the world would qualify but yet a quick search finds 
such generic terms as "lawyer", "123" and even the letter "F" included and 
"protected" in the database.

To confer rights to a company that gets such an entry into an unproven, 
database as cited above, against domain names that have been in existence for 
years under older contracts,  that had no such provisions,  is inherently  
unfair.

We urge ICANN to resist the call to impose URS on .Net through this registry 
contract renewal.


 

Michael H. Berkens

President
Worldwide Media, Inc.

wwmi.com

TheDomains.com