[At-Large] [GTLD-WG] IRT working group report

[Hong Xue]

> This may be correct with respect to registrants and privacy. I am not an
> expert in these matters, but it seems to me that from the point of view of
> not confronting users with domain names that are easily confusingly similar
> to others, the needs of real end-users and IP holders may well be quite
> complementary.

Neither IP extremism nor anti-IP extremism is in the interests of
users. Theoretically trademark protection is for users first and
competition second. Trademark counterfeiting is subject to criminal
punishment for it is deceptive to the public as well as infringes the
private right of the trademark owner. So the issue is reasonableness.

I'm not sure if Alan is referring to "domain name law" (perhaps
existing in some jurisdictions, Canada? ). If we are the same page and
discussing confusing similarity in the ambit of trademark law, then I
doubt the reasonableness of precluding an applied TLD string for it is
doomed "easily confusing" to users--it's not been used (let alone in
commerce). Even if such precluding could exist, it should be limited
to a small scope and unfortunately there is no globally recognized
well-know mark list to define that scope.

Hong

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