There can be no doubt that a domain name like travel.info would be
a very valuable
asset for a travel agency, because many of their
potential customers will try
http://www.travel.info first before
going to a general search engine when looking
for travel-related
information.Now here is how the planned procedures for dispute
resolution could
be abused to register this domain name during the "sunrise period".
It
is really very simple: I could pay someone to (falsely) claim
ownership of a valid
and enforcable trademark registration of the
word "travel", and to make a corresponding
"sunrise registration"
*at*a*speficied*time*. Because I would know in advance
exactly when
this "sunrise registration" is made, I could make sure that I would
be
the first to submit a challenge.
Because a generic term like "travel" cannot be
registered as a
trademark, it is clear that my challenge would be successful,
and
according to
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/info/registry-agmt-appj-02mar01.htm
this
means that the following would happen:
"9. During this ten-day hold period, Afilias
will offer the prevailing
challenger the option of registering the disputed domain
name on its
own behalf. It the challenger elects such option, the registry will
give
it an authorization code to allow registration of the domain name
through an accredited
registrar."
Nota bene, I'd get the option of registering travel.info even though
I
would make no claim to own a corresponding trademark - it suffices
that the
original registrant cannot prove their claim.
Conclusion: The proposed dispute
resolution policy is no good.
(I'm beginning to think that possibly the entire
idea with the
"sunrise period" is not as good as it might appear at first.)
Norbert
Bollow
Switzerland