Sorry Garry, I'd rather not play this particular game.My overally point was simply
this: Despite the seemingly (or even obviously) unfair system that was deployed,
I cannot identify through any one of the issues you mentioned: legal professional
negligence (no matter how many times you tell me about data validation - they simply
decided not to do it and they definitely didn't promise to validate entries only
to not follow through due to ineptitude), inequity, or any other contract violations
where Afilias has acted unlawfully.
Not 'having honour', using 'propoganda' or
'spin' as you call it, is not unlawful. Not choosing to validate data is their own
policy decision, but quite frankly, they could have decided at a contractual/policy
level to sell all their domains to Bill Gates and this still would not have been
unlawful. (Of course, they may have had some difficulty in getting ratification by
ICANN if this were the case.) As a private company it was their prerogative.
Whether
Sunrise solved any of the great intellectual property issues of our times, or even
worsened them, is irrelevant to whether you could successfully sue them. Afilias
were not under any legal obligation to solve any such issues. They made decisions.
Whether such decisions were in themselves "fair" or not, is something that probably
couldn't even make it to court.
Afilias decided to cater to IP owners as their
first priority which was not illegal. In fact, one could say they themselves had
the free-speech rights to make such policy decisions in the first place.
There
is no evidence that Afilias has been deceitful in a manner that would be construed,
before the eyes of a court, as unlawful...
Garry, you've obviously put a lot of
time and effort into this argument; so I'll give you these little concessions:
*
Overall, I think that many of the Sunrise policies were plainly weak and there were
much better ways to have carried out the trademark authorisation procedures.
*
Afilias' policies were massively weighted against the individual compared to businesses
and they actually had the effect of causing significant mistrust against the the
company by individuals.
* IP holders should not have had access to generic words
(especially for a domain name like .info) and it hasn't solved the important issue
of a severe shortage of TLD domain names (many .com owners simply bought the .info
equivalent before anyone else could).
* I'd even say it just to save you from
saying it even again: Yes, Sunrise was Bull* propoganda. Nevertheless, I'm giving
you my professional legal opinion when I say "tough luck".
When Afilias carry
out their (bad or not) policies in the way in which they said they would, litigiously
speaking, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it and them:
Except of course:
just don't buy a domain name.
You could pour a lot of time and money into trying
to sue them but I guarantee you would not succeed. I'd be extremely surprised if
it even made it to trial; you'd have a hard time getting past your first hurdle of
contractual indemnity without very obvious evidence of negligence.
But believe
it or not, I'd love it if you could prove me wrong - then you could start to really
put your "trainee grade" legal talents to good use. I'm sure you'll agree that your
diligence to this cause is probably wasted on this particular forum.
Anxiously
awaiting the trial of Anderson v. Afilias Ltd,
Alex