[NA-Discuss] Fwd: "Domain Protection Racket" Promotion on Network Solutions Home Page

[Evan Leibovitch]

Certainly, such activity helps make the case that the trademark lobby (and
GAC acting as proxies) have been making -- that more than anything, the new
gTLD space is primarily (or at least substantially) designed to make money
off of defensive registrations.

The ICANN response to trademark owners is to point out the URS and other
takedown measures. But if ICANN's oldest registrar(*) continues to propagate
the myth that the only assured way to protect one's brand is to register it
under every gTLD, the very existence of a registrar's "protect your brand"
 infers that the built-in mechanisms are insufficient.

Michele, if you're here I'd like to hear your PoV on this. On one hand
registrars obviously want as much domain tonnage as possible. OTOH, isn't
the use of "protect your brand" marketing an open admission that ICANN's
brand-protection measures aren't enough? Is this not just an open admission
that the IPC and GAC positions are valid, and an invitation for outside (ie
legislative) regulation?

Note; on trandemark protection, the At-Large position is somewhat in-between
the ICANN status quo and the GAC/IPC position (and in some cases we think
they're BOTH wrong).

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56


(*) There may be older ones, but this one is on most peoples' heads.



On 29 August 2011 14:39, Beau Brendler <beaubrendler at earthlink.net> wrote:

>
>   Interesting discussion on the NCSG list sort of pertaining to TLD
> marketing,
>   I'm guessing they won't mind me cross-posting it.
>   Anybody know these guys?
>   http://www.pfir.org/index.html#info
>
>     -----Forwarded Message-----
>     From: Nicolas Adam
>     Sent: Aug 28, 2011 5:23 PM
>     To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>     Subject: [NCSG-Discuss] Fwd: "Domain Protection Racket" Promotion on
>     Network Solutions Home Page
>     You'll notice the "Protect Your Brand", in the center. It's not as big
> as
>     the criticism below make it to be but it's there.
>     Would   it   be   relevant  and/or  feasible  to  'regulate'  (read
>     encourage/constrain ==> through types of means that i will leave open
> to
>     discussion) the way registrar can market those new TLD?
>     First, it doesn't look good.
>     Second,  while  i  don't  think anybody (except perhaps established
>     registrars) who are in favor of gTLD expansion have a clear view of
> what
>     the emergent system of naming and names will or should be, i am pretty
>     sure no-one so disposed would care to advocate that this system should
>     establish itself mainly as a protection scheme.
>     Is forcing advertising to depart with the protection rhetoric a step
>     forward? Is it feasible?
>     Just some thoughts.
>     Nicolas
>     -------- Original Message --------
>
>   Subject: [ NNSquad ] "Domain Protection Racket" Promotion on Network
>   Solutions Home Page
>   Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:42:23 -0700
>   From: Lauren Weinstein [1]<lauren at vortex.com>
>   To: [2]nnsquad at nnsquad.org
>
> "Domain Protection Racket" Promotion on Network Solutions Home Page
>
> This "in your face" promotion currently running on the Network
> Solutions home page clearly illustrates how the current top-level
> domains (gTLD) expansion plan is akin to a traditional "Sign up now or
> something bad might, uh, happen to you, buddy!" protection racket.
>
> [3]http://j.mp/ofrzyv  (Lauren's Blog - Screen capture from
> networksolutions.co
> m)
>
> As you can see, there is no concept of community service, social
> responsibility, or even real "value-added" benefits.  The promotion
> for two TLDs is explicitly about *protection* -- as in protecting
> yourself from someone else grabbing those domains and making you look
> bad, confusing your customers, and worse -- whether you have any real
> interest in those TLDs or not.
>
> And this is *only the beginning*, my friends.
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein ([4]lauren at vortex.com): [5]http://www.vortex.com/lauren
> Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: [6]http://www.pfir.org
> Founder:
>  - Network Neutrality Squad: [7]http://www.nnsquad.org
>  - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: [8]
> http://www.gctip.o
> rg
>  - PRIVACY Forum: [9]http://www.vortex.com
> Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
> Blog: [10]http://lauren.vortex.com
> Google+: [11]http://vortex.com/g+lauren
> Twitter: [12]https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
> Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
>
> References
>
>   1. mailto:lauren at vortex.com
>   2. mailto:nnsquad at nnsquad.org
>   3. http://j.mp/ofrzyv
>   4. mailto:lauren at vortex.com
>   5. http://www.vortex.com/lauren
>   6. http://www.pfir.org/
>   7. http://www.nnsquad.org/
>   8. http://www.gctip.org/
>   9. http://www.vortex.com/
>  10. http://lauren.vortex.com/
>  11. http://vortex.com/g+lauren
>  12. https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
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