May 8, 2001

3:46 PM

Domain name game to get hot this summer...Kent Jordan, who represented .info registry Afilias, said the process has been challenged by people who believe that trademark holders should not have first crack at domain names containing their names. "We reject that," he told the audience. Interesting...
posted by canoeguide (5 comments total)

Hot??!!! I've give ya freakin' hot!!

"How easy will it be for the little guy to secure space using the new domains? Not very. Although the process opens the potential for many more names than currently exist, there are severe restrictions on most domains."

Well great. That solves the whole problem then. Who ever has the most money and the best lawyers gets the name. ICANN is my freakin' hero.

All we're doing here is creating more wealth for domain squatters and lawyers. I've been trying to get jons.com for years. It's never been hooked to anything and the guy keeps saying he'll sell it to me for $50,000.

With about ten other people chomping at the bit to own jon.sullivan.name now I'm obligated to spend a bunch of time getting that. Where does it end?

The domain name system used to be a scary monster, but now ICANN has bolted lots of scary parts onto it. How the help do I get to United Airlines? United.com? United.biz? United.aero? All of which United's lawyers will have to fight for. What's the point?

This is the biggest and most expensive "non-solution" I can think of.

And Afilias can say whatever they want about .info, but with a million trademark lawyers trying to bludgeon them into line, I don't think it will take long for them to cave.
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:59 PM on May 8, 2001

Is somebody here messing with me? I just got this spam:

"Subject: Protect Your Company Name, jon.biz"

I'm not kidding.
posted by y6y6y6 at 5:19 PM on May 8, 2001

Elana Broitman, a lawyer representing RegistryPro, told the room full of fellow attorneys that such restrictions will naturally hinder abuse because those professions have a higher level of ethics than other groups and "would be less likely to cybersquat."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
posted by quonsar at 5:23 PM on May 8, 2001

Fat lot of good those ICANN at-large memberships did for all us net users trying to get our voices heard. ICANN: where your vote really *doesn't* count for much.

really, how freaking common will ".aero" be? I can see some use in ".museum"... but these names do nothing to help alleviate the domain name rush. y6 is right - this whole tld release has been a non-event for most net users, and can only benefit a handful of special-interest groups. I see some redistribution of wealth in the coming years, but only from duped businesses and personal users to the pockets of registrars.
posted by salsamander at 6:43 PM on May 8, 2001

anyone have systems to do something like new.net, but with our own TLDs? we could all me something.mefi
posted by benjh at 5:20 AM on May 9, 2001