Re: Who really benefits from 60-day period?

[Simon Higgs <simon@higgs.com>]

At 2:19 PM -0500 1/9/97, Leo Smith wrote:

> The 60 day wait will not reduce the number of speculators. Companies would
> still grab names and register them before their competitors did. The real
> issue is: How many cases are there where the motive for registration is
> ransom? If the ransom problem is very significant, involving tens of
>thousands
> of URLs, out of the 800,000 total, then perhaps  the problem is
> significant enough to warrant action. On the other hand, if the problem is
> limited to a few hundred cases out of 800,000, then how can we
>justify putting
> 799,600 people through grief and hassle of a waiting period, when the
>outcome
> will affect such a tiny fraction of a percent of the total users?

I'd say that speculation will increase because of this policy. If a
domain name passes the 60 day waiting period it's going to be much
tougher for a company to obtain a name from the applicant. The case law
generated by those successfully retaining their domain names will
guarantee this. Therefore the "ransom" value will become higher. Given
the higher return on investment from this, it's reasonable to assume
that speculation will significantly increase as lower numbers of domain
names will bring in the same $$$ value.

The 60 day wait serves only one practical purpose - to feed the legal
industry. It does nothing for either the end user of the domain name or
the trademark holder.


Regards,

Simon

--
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.