I have watched this and similar forums over the last
several days.
There has been a lot of rhetoric and some solid, practical proposals
and actions.
Examples of the latter are the remedial proposals (such as the “Domebase
Proposal” and the “Simple Solution”) and creation of the www.theinternetchallenge.com
with a developing list of all suspect sunrise registrations. The list of suspect
names with key details is particularly helpful as the common sense dictates that
the names on the list will be very difficult to ignore by Afilias even if third parties
do not challenge them during the designated 120-day challenge period. On the other
hand, there has been an amusing spectacle of grown-up temper-tantrums with a great
deal of whining, cursing, dreaming and wishful thinking. Some examples follow:
There
has been a lot of talk about criminal prosecutions of “sunrise fraudsters”.
Has
anybody ever heard of criminal prosecution in domain-names cases; even the world-famous
sex.com case is still hovering around in the civil courts.
There is repeated and
highlighted mention about the Trademark Counterfeiting Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2320. Read
the law and find out what its about. It only pertains to counterfeiting an existing
trademark to defraud the consumers. In this situation, no trademark or product exits.
Moreover, this is an American law and does not apply to the rest of the globe!!
One
of things which naïve Americans and to some extent Europeans forget that Internet
and related matters do not belong to the USA and its “allies” in the western world.
How in the world you guys are going to get FBI involved in over 100 countries; FBI
can’t even get it’s own house in order….Osama bin Laden who is accused of killer
terrorist acts is still on it’s most wanted list. How you guys are going to prosecute
somebody sitting in Korea, India or China.
One more thing: Did ICANN or Afilias
even mention the possibility of a criminal prosecution for providing false trademark
information; the only consequence that has been mentioned is cancellation of the
registered domain and forfeiture of the registration fee.
So get real, stop whining,
cursing and day-dreaming about criminal prosecutions and start thinking of realistic
and practical solutions that will make sense and not insult the intelligence of a
non-American.