Need for NSI forced policy change, was RE: Thread 2: 60-day issue

[Carl Oppedahl <carl@oppedahl.com>]

At 06:50 PM 12/30/96 +0100, Paul Svensson wrote:

>On Wed, 25 Dec 1996, Carl Oppedahl wrote:

>>At 03:29 PM 12/25/96 +0100, David Rosenthal wrote:

>>>If you sign up for a new domain name before all others and it does not
>>>infringe any other's right's, why should anyone else be allowed to opt
>>>for that name too? 

>>There is no reason that someone else should be able to, of course you are
>>correct.  What's different is that under the present NSI regime, someone
>>else can try to get the domain name taken away from its owner not only
>>within 60 days, but any time in the years that follow.  At least the IAHC
>>proposal compresses most of the risk into the first 60 days, and allows a
>>sigh of relief after the 60 days has expired.

>Carl,
>Why do you keep bringing the current NSI conflict resolution policy
>into the issue of the 60 day hold ?

>There's no connection between these two issues;
>the flaw with the NSI policy isn't that they don't have hold period,
>and adding one wouldn't make their policy work any better;
>the gain from the IAHC proposal comes from avoiding the mistake of NSI,
>not from adding the 60 day wait.
>
>The IAHC proposal with the 60 day wait should be compared with
>the same proposal without the 60 day wait, nothing else.
>Bringing the NSI policy into the discussion only serves confusion.

The reason that bringing the NSI policy into the discussion is simple --
the NSI policy is in place now, and it gives rise to a continuous, ongoing,
wholly unjustified risk for all of the three quarters of a million members
of the Internet community who, like you and me, have domain names.  

IAHC's proposed trademark domain dispute policy is quite interesting as a
planning exercise, but it affects approximately zero people today or next
week or next month or next year.  NSI's terribly flawed policy affects
750,000 domain name owners right now, and NSI shows no sign of getting a
clue about it (despite having its head handed to it in the two clue.com
lawsuits).

I have been delighted to see the literally hundreds of postings debating
the large points and fine points of the IAHC proposal, for the simple
reason that it means people are finally thinking about this issue, almost a
year after the first domain name lawsuit in which a court was asked to
order NSI not to carry out its policy.  

I am confident that everybody in the Internet community (except, of course,
NSI) is clear that the mistakes of NSI should not be allowed to be repeated
elsewhere by other newly created registries.  60-day period or no 60-day
period, that mistake won't be propagated further, I am confident.  

But the fact that the IAH Committee has made a draft recommendation means
nothing for the 750,000 present-day domain name owners, because NSI
apparently continues to lack a clue.  For the Internet community, then, the
debate should not be limited (as you seem to suggest) to whether there is
or is not a waiting period recited in a draft document that might have its
first effect in a year or two for some newly created TLD.  For the Internet
community, the debate should include such issues as:

1.  What pressure can be brought, by IAHC or the Internet community
generally, to induce NSI to get a clue and scrap its policy, which the
International Trademark Association has termed a "failure"?  What can be
done to force NSI to revert to its (and all domain name registries') first
policy, which was RFC 1591, or to the IAHC proposal?  The reason this is
important is that nearly every present-day domain name owner (including you
with svensson.org and me with oppedahl.com) is at never-ending risk of
arbitrary and capricious risk of loss of a domain name.  It is a risk that
harms the entire Internet community for every day it persists.

2.  Since NSI seems to be stubbornly clinging to its policy despite clear
evidence that it is fatally flawed, what can be done to ensure that its
little exclusive plaything and cash cow, the COM domain, is taken from it
no later than 1998 when the NSF contract expires?

Issues 1 and 2 are, I suggest, as deserving of the time of the Internet
community and the commenters to the IAHC proposal as efforts to fine-tune
the 60-day part of the IAHC draft.

I will take your comment not so much as a suggestion that problems 1 and 2
should be ignored, but rather as a suggestion that the subject line be
changed so that people will recognize the existence of a new thread in the
discussion list.

Carl Oppedahl