Re: New TLDs and Registry charters

[Knut Smaaland <Knut.Smaaland@sn.no>]

At 15:10 10.12.96 -0500, Vince Wolodkin wrote:
>John Young wrote:


and he wrote a lot more as well.

I'd like to comment a bit on some of your observations.

You say that among other things that the legal system within a country can
cope with naming disputes resulting from trademark conflicts under a 
supposed .INT domain.

I can largely agree to that observation.

But where I lose track of your arguments or thinking or logic or whatever
is when you introduce the notion of a treaty or government or whatever
supranational animal which have to be brought into action whenever there
is both a Saudi-Arabian grxPLC and a Samoaian grxPLC using their own name
on each other turfs.

I must admit that I fail to see the difference between my grxPLC registered
name beeing threatened or misused by a foreigner and beeing misused by a fellow
countryman.
The legal system of many countries are fully capable of handling such conflicts.

The MacDonald hamburger guy is a very good example of this,
those burger owners/producers are more or less constantly in legal conflict
with somebody in some country,
allegedly stepping on some sore hamburger toes.

What lesson can be learned from that?
If big hamburger producers can use national legal systems as a tool for fighting
for their hamburger brand,
so can any other odd user of the net,
selling bras, sattelites, nickers, submarines or whatever.

Lesson?
Don't mix two foreigners quarelling with the need to bring
treaties and governments on the scene.

While I'm at it I'd like to throw in a couple of more points
before room service arrives.

What would, rightfully or "wrongfully", bring governments on the scene
to regulate TLDs domain names, user names, and Internet traffic as a whole?
I'd say that will happen when (there are also other reasons)
        a) commercial business on the www or internett grows
           to a stage when the turnover is a significant part
           of the GNP, moneywise or influence wise,
           AND! those involved in producing the turnover feel that
           due to lack of management of the naming and addressing structure,
           the business is suffering.
        b) the number of legal conflicts grows to a level where it would
           appear relatively weird to people and politicians.

Since I'm still waiting for room service, a bit slow this hotel I'm stying in,
I'll put in some solid criticism.

Wow, my steak and red wine just arrived, I'd better hurry.

You guys in IAHC and surroundings have sat down to sort out a problem
which is common to many, all over the world.
You ain't, in my mind doing a very good job of it, the discussion is rather
confused in my mind, and there is a lot of "is flame the word?" around
and also a lot of personal conflicts and feelings surfacing.
That is hardly a suitable way of addressing an international issue.

And in my mind, the less IAHC and the like is messing around,
the smaller are the chances that FCC or State (I say state because they
are the US ITU administration) will interfere.

Fix the business and problems yourself and FCC and State will keep a
distance.
Make a balls up of the traffic and the naming issues on the net, and FCC
probably will be on the scene.

Yeah,
and one more point, rather quickly, since the steak has arrived and is
cooling and
my red wine is breathing.
One point which I'd like to stress very much is:
Naming rules enforced and policed by the government is one thing.
You guys don't want that, fine!
 
But then, what have you? 
The only thing you have is a naming system
for those who agrees with the naming system.

I.e., you must create wide agreement to what you are doing,
and you must believe in what you do.

The power of enforcement available to you is the degree of believing
in what you are doing.

Whatever you design, for whatever participants, for whatever reason,
unless you bring the stupid authorities in,
it is only valid and workable as long as people believe in it
on a voluntary basis.    

 
>> 
>> Two additional questions:
>> 
>> 1.      How about two US holders of identical federal trademark
registrations?
>
>This is where additional categorical breakdown becomes necessary much
>like that discussed by Simon Higgs.  In fact, this situation will arise
>no matter what unless additional categorization is implemented.
>
>> 2.      How about a mulitnational business; what tld does that go in?
>> 
>Well, depending on the business, and the level of their international
>presence.  They could either be housed under .INT or in each country
>where they have a presence.  Since host/domain names AREN'T IP
>addresses, I can have any number of "A" records with the same IP address
>but differing hostnames.  I think there is something called a "CNAME"
>als
>
>> John Young
>> 
>> ----------
>
>In any case, my goal with this is to eliminate international issues.  It
>is my firm belief(and I think that of Don Heath/ISOC also) that
>significant international issues will wake sleeping giants(governments)
>and cause a push in government circles to sign treaties and regulate.
>
>While I personally feel that a treaty may be the most appropriate way to
>handle international issues, I am willing to suggest ways to avoid them
>completely.  Removing iTLDs altogether other than .INT will basically
>"nationalize" the domain naming system.  Each country will be able to
>grant registries as they see fit.  There should be very few
>international trademark disputes.  National trademark disputes can be
>handled within each country's own legal system.  In fact, disputes of
>most any nature will be most ably handled by each countries own legal
>system.  It is when legal systems interplay, and international disputes
>arise that governments get involved and treaties become necessary.
>
>While I realize that this seems like a major change, it really isn't. 
>McDonald's can still have mcdonalds.com in every country where they have
>sucessfully litigated their trademark.  In fact, it is my belief that
>even multinational companies don't trade in ALL countries, but if they
>did, they are quite able to register domains in every ISO TLD where they
>have presence, and can comply with local trademark laws.  Surprising how
>much this sounds like real-life business issues for international
>companies.  These companies that have international presence are quite
>well versed at dealing with local governments and would have no problems
>acquiring domain names in many countries.
>
>Let's face it, the original naming system, for better or worse, was
>devised with really only the US in mind.  The addition of the rest of
>the world has made the current scheme(.com, .net, .org, etc)
>unacceptable.
>
>The goal is to develop a system that we can all live with well into the
>21st century.  This is truly the only one that will keep governments out
>of the regulation/treaty business because international issues are
>removed.
>
>Vince Wolodkin
>
>> > From: Vince Wolodkin <wolodkin@digitalink.com>
>> > To: joe@spiderweb.com
>> > Cc: newdom@vrx.net; DOMAIN-POLICY@LISTS.INTERNIC.NET;
>> iahc-discuss@iahc.org; tmcghan@gill-simpson.com
>> > Subject: Re: New TLDs and Registry charters
>> > Date: Tuesday, December 10, 1996 12:40 PM
>> >
>> > Joseph A. Falejczyk wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > > From:          Vince Wolodkin <wolodkin@digitalink.com>
>> > > >
>> > > > > Anyway, lets say I look up xyz.com, I would get back my local(.US)
>> > > > > xyz.com.  This immediately could satisfy lots of international
>> > > > > trademark disputes.  In addition, though I hadn't mentioned it
>> > > > > before, a Maryland company and a Virginia company both holding
>> local
>> > > > > trademarks could be xyz.com.va.us and xyz.com.md.us.
>> > > > >
>> > > > gee, vince, I wish I'd thought of that!     ;-}
>> > > >
>> > >
>> > > Good effort, but...what if xyz.com company in Virginia has a Federal
>> > > trademark??
>> >
>> > No problem, then they are xyz.com.us.  Since they have the federal
>> > trademark, no other xyz but them can have xyz.com.us.
>> >
>> > Vince
>
>
  --
Med vennlig hilsen \ Regards	Knut.Smaaland@sn.no
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