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Username: DomeBase
Date/Time: Fri, August 31, 2001 at 6:20 PM GMT
Browser: Netscape Communicator V4.7 using Windows NT
Subject: REVISED DOMEBASE PROPOSAL (8/31/2001) feedback welcome

Message:
 

 
        REVISED DOMEBASE PROPOSAL (8/31/2001)

1. Hold "Land Rush I" as originally scheduled.

2. Registrars do not submit names in "Land Rush I" that are registered in the Sunrise Period.

3. After Land Rush I, registrars give their customers the option to:
(a) cancel name not submitted in Land Rush I and receive any applicable refund... none, partial or complete, depending on registrar-specific agreement; or
(b) have name submitted in Land Rush II held after the end of the Sunrise Challenge period without additional cost.

4. All names registered in the Sunrise Period are entered into Land Rush II.

5. In addition to people with names postponed from Land Rush I, new people can pre-register names in Land Rush II.  Registrars who accepted "only one submission per name" for Land Rush I must keep that policy for Land Rush II to avoid "bait and switch" for Land Rush I pre-registrants.

6. The "winner" of a name for Land Rush II: (a) gets that name for a registration fee if the name has been successfully Sunrise challenged* by Afilias or someone else and not taken by someone with legitimate trademark rights; (b) gets that name for a registration fee if it has been voluntarily canceled by the Sunrise registrant; or (c) can Sunrise challenge* the name and get it if successful (the name is not trademarked) for a subsidized fee (between $0 and $295) without having to show a trademark right in the name (which would be impossible by definition).  In this manner, legitimate trademark holders would not lose any names in Land Rush II, but sunrise squatters on non-trademarked names would face challenge by either Afilias or the Land Rush II winner.

*to protect legitimate trademark holders from name loss due to WHOIS data processing corruption (good data entered, bad data displayed), give original registrant a specified time-window after challenge to demonstrate that the registrant holds legitimate trademark for the name in accordance with Sunrise rules despite corrupted WHOIS data.

---------------------------------------------

I welcome your feedback.  Some of my own comments. 

If you want to eliminate Sunrise or want to set up a separate TLD extension for trademarks, then I can understand how you would not support this... although the honest Land Rush folks will be the sacrificial lamb to achieve this policy objective.

If you want to ensure that registrars do not register any names for themselves, then you would view this as not going far enough.  Please see my earlier post about how complex this is... ethically, technically, and politically.  Based on my empirical analysis of over 11,000 names, it looks to me like the sunrise squatter issue is an
order of mangnitude larger than registrar reserved issue... and much clearer ethically, contractually, politically, and technically.  If you really want to pursue this, then please either: pursue yourself; or tackle the issues I raised to convince me and others that this can/should be tackled here.  I, for one, do not feel smart enough or
politically powerful enough to solve this one at this time.

Personally, I think that this proposal is pareto optimal (makes everyone either better off or neutral) for Afilias, ICANN, registrars, Land Rush preregistrants, IPC and TM lawyers, and general public... everyone except sunrise squatters who have snatched .INFO names with bogus trademark information.  Time is running out for constructive action.  The current course is not a good one.

                      
     
     

 

Link: DomeBase.com


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