Re: Trademarks, random strings, sharing, reserved words

["Joseph J. Kim" <jokim@server.Berkeley.EDU>]

On Mon, 23 Dec 1996, Michael Dillon wrote:

> On Mon, 23 Dec 1996, Brad Templeton wrote:
> 
> > Has anybody suggested they would find a random string in a domain name
> > acceptable if there is an alternative?
> 
> A random string in a domain name is simply not acceptable at all. It
> ceases to be a name once random strings are injected and becomes no better
> than an IP address. Now I know the technologists will object that IP
> addresses are substantially different from domain names and that a random
> string in a domain name does not affect the technical operation of the
> DNS. They are missing the point.

[...]

> 
> Just because you call it a domain *NAME* doesn't make it a name. In order
> to truly be a NAME it must meet certaion criteria that have been laid down
> over thousands of years by human beings in every part of the world. Every
> single language spoken by humans has the concept of a noun, or name in it.
> Some languages may have a lower percentage of nouns than others, but the
> noun or name is fundamental to human thought and language. A random string
> is not a name, it is a code no different from an IP address. 

What do people think about some kind of well known prefix to be used during
the 60 day period instead of the random string?  The prefix would not be able
to be used in other names and could be something like "TMP-" for temporary,
or some other such prefix.  So in other words, Cisco Systems wants to
register in the .router tld and is assigned the SLD "TMP-cisco.router" or
microsoft could be given "TMP-microsoft.leech", or bay networks could be
given "TMP-bay.bankrupt", etc.  After the 60 day period obviously the name is
changed to discard the prefix if there was no domain name contention or
contention has been resolved. 

-jjk