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Username:	dtobias
Date/Time:	Thu, August 30, 2001 at 12:12 AM GMT
Browser:	Netscape Communicator V5.0 using Windows dows
Subject:	Country names
Message:
I respectfully disagree.  Plenty of sites use the names of countries, states, and cities in a perfectly reasonable way for sites that discuss that locality (either commercial or noncommercial).  It's a very contentious issue whether the governments involved have the right to force the transfer of those domains -- an ICANN UDRP case awarded "barcelona.com" to the city government, but this case is widely regarded as one where the panelist grossly violated the policy which should not have permitted such a transfer where the domain had been used for a perfectly legitimate site.  The case is in U.S. courts now.  Meanwhile, the government of South Africa have given up in their attempts to force the transfer of southafrica.com.  Governments have proper places for their official sites within the appropriate country code domains, like gov.za for South Africa.  They have no special claim to "their name" in all other TLDs, especially ones that are intended for commercial entities like .com and .biz.  They do have as much right as any other landrush participant to try to get their name in .info, and as much right as anybody to object to fraudulent sunrise applications by others not possessing trademark rights, but unless they own trademark rights to their locality name (which is illegal in most countries which bar geographical names from trademark protection) they do not have pre-emptive rights over the name.
Link:	Dan's Domain Site: ICANN Disputes

Message Thread:

• Alarm from the Forum,  Domain names of countries. — Elvis, August 30 @ 11:21 AM (2/9)
• Domain names of countries — Garry Anderson, August 30 @ 12:23 AM (1/1)
• Countries have their own websites EOM — psbyowner, August 30 @ 5:22 PM (0/0)
• Country names — dtobias, August 30 @ 12:12 AM (2/6)
• I Argee EOM — psbyowner, September 1 @ 4:36 PM (0/0)
• Consider this — Elvis, August 30 @ 12:22 AM (1/4)
• .info is gTLD - NOT ccTLD — Garry Anderson, August 30 @ 12:45 AM (1/3)
• Point being — Garry Anderson, August 30 @ 1:12 PM (1/2)
• Free speech — Elvis, August 30 @ 6:15 PM (1/1)
• fall into the wrongs hands? — Garry Anderson, August 30 @ 10:15 PM (0/0)

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