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Username: pilot2
Date/Time: Tue, October 24, 2000 at 12:45 AM GMT
Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer V4.01 using Windows 98
Score: 5
Subject: "Bad Faith" Registrations

Message:
 

 
                There will be bad faith registration for any new TLD.  Now people all over the world are online, and have access to new TLDs.  Most of the world has yet to learn about trademarks, the WIPO, Barcelona.com, etc.  We all know bad faith registrations and cybersquatting are not proper.  However, the sunrise period in favor of trademark holders is not the answer. 
You know Coca Cola will take advantage of the sunrise period to register coke.whatever, soda.whatever, etc.  Coke.whatever should be available to everyone.  (Coke is mineral substance/commodity used in the iron and steel industry.) But if you think trademark holders have it bad retrieving their tradmarks from cybersquatters, just try to get coke.web back from Coca Cola ... it would never happen.

Holding all domains from the public while offering them up on a silver platter to trademark holders, for any amount of time, is inherently unfair.  It's not the road to follow.  Proctor & Gamble has the rights to ProctorAndGamble.whatever, no problem.  But given the opportunity, they will buy every generic domain name that could possibly get them extra traffic on their website.  They've already done it.  It is at least as equally unfair to you and me, as cybersquatting on their trademark is to them.

The process is now set up to deal with cybersquatters and bad faith registrations.  This process is already heavily weighted in favor of the trademark lobby.  Crew.com and Barcelona.com come to mind as prime examples.  To offer additional gratuities to holders of popular trademarks will further tilt the dispute process.

The world is coming online.  I notice there is a concentration of potential bad faith registrations from a third world country. What do you expect when the registrant lives in a country in which you have to stand in line all day for toilet paper or bread?  Somehow, they managed to get a computer, and get online.  Don't help keep them impoverished by holding back availability of domain names.  Let the dispute process run its course.  Holders of bad faith registrations will learn quickly they wasted $35.00 or more.

It doesn't matter if there are two million bad faith registrations at
any TLD.  It is not fair to keep domain names off the market so some companies can hand-pick through them. 

I am forever grateful to Chris Ambler and IOD for allowing me to register chandeliers.WEB.  I own a company that manufactures chandeliers.  If there had been a sunrise period for .WEB registrations, Waterford Corporation or any huge chandelier company would undoubtedly have bought chandeliers.WEB, before it was even available to me.  I would not have been able to compete with them, as effectively, in the chandelier business.  Now I can. I GUARANTEE YOU THERE ARE MANY MORE EXAMPLES LIKE MINE, WORLDWIDE, THAN THERE ARE EXAMPLES OF BAD FAITH DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATIONS. 

Screw the sunrise period.


     
     

 


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