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

Beau Brendler beaubrendler at earthlink.net
Mon Aug 29 18:39:52 UTC 2011


   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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