Re: How big the domain name risk really is?

[Carl Oppedahl <carl@oppedahl.com>]

At 10:46 PM 01/07/97 -0500, Leo Smith wrote: 
>Leo Smith wrote to Carl Oppedahl
>: >If we use the past
>: >as a gauge, there are over 800,000 URLs registered under the .com TLD.
>Of
>: >the 800,000 URLs registered under .com, less than 200 trademark
>: >confrontations occurred. 
>
>To which Carl replied:
>: NSI conducts its domain-name-cutoff hearings in secret and refuses to
>allow
>: the Internet community to review the cases.  How do you suppotr your
>"less
>: than 200" number?  NSI was recently quoted as saying there had been some
>: 350 handled by NSI.  And there are numerous others that have been in the
>: courts and were not handled by NSI.  This suggests that the correct
>number
>: is more than double your number.
>
>To which Leo replies: I spoke directly with INTERNIC's trademark section.
>The estimate of 200 was from a clerk working in the department, who
>described the number of URLs involved in trademark controversy as
>"extremely small". 

Yes, NSI's party line is to characterize it as "extremely small", since
that permits them to attempt to talk away the harm that their trademark
domain name policy has caused and is likely to continue to cause.  But
pointing to a number like 200 is quite unrealistic, for several reasons.
First of all, while NSI is generally obsessively secretive about its domain
name cutoff decisionmaking activity, it has publicly stated that the number
is more like 350.  Second, there is a multiplier effect -- for each dispute
that reaches NSI, there are many others (I estimate the ratio at 10 to 1 or
more) in which trademark owners make private threats to domain name owners,
waving a stick that says "NSI policy" on it.  Third, the number of domain
name owners that are presently at severe risk of nearly instant loss of
their domain names is probably in the many hundreds of thousands, under
NSI's present policy.