DOMEBASE PROPOSAL (revised 12/6/2001) 1. Afilias announces that there will be
a "Land Rush II" after challenges by Afilias are done. Land Rush II should
include all names registered in the Sunrise Period because, due to the ways fees
and incentives are structured, it is unlikely that all the names that should
be challenged would be challenged beforehand. As outlined below, legitimate
trademark holders will not lose any names in Land Rush II, but Sunrise squatters
on non-trademarked names will lose their names.
2. Registrars can participate
in Land Rush II if they agree not to charge their customers who paid for names in
Land Rush I twice for the same thing. Specifically, registrars can participate in
Land Rush II if they: (a) did not charge non-refundable pre-registration fees for
Land Rush I; or (b) allow their customers who paid non-refundable pre-registration
fees in Land Rush I for names taken during Sunrise to pre-register for the same names
in Land Rush II without paying twice. Also, they should accept only one submission
per name in Land Rush II if they did this in Land Rush I. Some people have
also suggested that only registrars who give the public a chance to pre-register
in their list should be allowed to submit a list names.
3. New customers also
encouraged to pre-register names in Land Rush II. Although the rights of original
Land Rush participants should be protected, other people should also have a chance
at the Land Rush II names.
4. The "winner" of a name for Land Rush II gets
that name for a registration fee if the name has been successfully Sunrise challenged
or canceled by Afilias and not taken by someone with legitimate trademark rights.
If the name is not available, the "winner" also has the option to Sunrise challenge
the name and get it if successful (the name is not trademarked) for a subsidized
fee (somewhere between $0 and $295) without having to show a trademark right in the
name (which would be impossible by definition).To protect legitimate trademark holders
from name loss due to WHOIS data processing corruption (good data entered, bad data
displayed), challenged registrants should have 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.
Comments welcome...