Re: New TLDs and Registry charters

[Daniel Kaplan <dkaplan@terra-nova.fr>]

At 22:42 -0000 6/12/96, Gilles LERAT wrote:

>>Does this mean that NIC-France completely disallows an individual
>>person from owning a domain name?  Could I get kentcrispin.*.fr, for
>>example?
>
>No, you can't.
>In fact, a company can only get one secondary level domain under the .fr
>hierarchy.
>The only way for a company to get another name is to register a trademark
>via INPI (the
>French organization for trademarks), and then register under the .tm.fr
>domain.
>This situation has led a number of companies to move to the .COM domain
>where the
>registration process is more open (and also cheaper by the way).
>Besides, the registration process is viewed as bureaucratic, since you have
>to prove that you are who you claim to be.
>I am not saying that the policy made by NIC-FRANCE is wrong, as this situation
>prevents from many legal domain names disputes
>(see: http://www.law.gwu.edu/lc/internic/recent/rec1.html for more details).
>
>On the other hand, rules like this increase the rush towards .COM secondary
>level domains, which is also one of the problem to solve.

Registering under.fr costs, on average, $150; no fee is levied after
registration.
True, NIC-France has come under fire for being somewhat slow and
bureaucratic. This should be avoided/corrected - but at the same time they
did avoid disputes. And I'm not sure superfast (ie, hours or days vs. 1-2
weeks) regsitration is that important: generally, it's not on the critical
path for an organization's Internet project.
The main reason why many companies went to .com is because it gives them a
global image.

>In my opinion, one the main reasons to create new top level domains, is
>mostly because we are getting short of international secondary level domains
>(the fact the NSI was implicitely granted a monopoly does not appear to be
>the main issue here).
>
[snip]
>I think the management of a domain name and the trademark problem are two
>different issues and should not be mixed.
>The main reason for this is that domain names are unique whereas trademarks
>are not.
>To say it simply: we should let the courts deal with the trademark & TLD
>issue, because
>generic rules will probably be irrelevant to certain specific cases.

This is hiding your head in the sand: both problems are highly related, and
saying "let the courts deal with that" creates several sets of problems:
- disputes may include persons and organizations in several countries;
- courts are slow and solving disputes ay take years;
- trials are expensive: only the rich will go to court;
- in the meantime, the Internet's image will be severely damaged by
hundreds of ongoing disputes. We must design mechanismes that prevent that
as much as possible.

Daniel