ICANN to allow commercial gTLDs

Jeff Wheeler jsw at inconcepts.biz
Sat Jun 18 05:05:14 UTC 2011


On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 12:04 AM, George B. <georgeb at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think I will get .payme  and make sure coke.payme, pepsi.payme,
> comcast.payme, etc. all get registered at the low-low price of
> $10/year.  All I would need is 100,000 registrations to provide me
> with a million dollar a year income stream for the rest of my life.

I have read this thread, but certainly not any ICANN garbage.  It
seems to me that a TLD for a brand, like Coca-Cola, would not be used
in the same way as GTLDs.  Will George actually be allowed to carve up
his own TLD and sell bits of it to anyone who is willing to click a
checkbox on GoDaddy.com?  Obviously there is not any technical
limitation in place to prevent this, but will there be legal / "layer
9" limitations?

I kinda figured additional GTLDs is not very useful given that
probably every domain registrar drives customers to "protect their
brand," avoid phishing attacks against their customers, etc. by buying
not only example.com, but also net|org|biz|etc.  I imagine that
registrars may be really excited about this idea, because it
represents additional fees/revenue to them.  I can't understand why it
is good for anyone else.  Does McDonald's really want to print
http://mcdonalds/ or www.mcdonalds instead of www.mcdonalds.com on
their soft drink cups and TV ads?

Is Owen so disconnected from reality that he thinks the chain with the
golden arches is spelled "MacDonald's?"

I don't particularly care about the intellectual property questions
(in the context of NANOG) but if you really want to bang your head
against that, I suggest reading about the current trademark status of
"Standard Oil."  In short, it remains a legally protected mark but has
several distinct owners throughout the United States -- a result of
the break-up.  "Waffle House" is a little complex, too.  Somehow the
GTLD system continues to function.  I imagine the relevant authorities
are capable of figuring out who should be allowed to register which
brand-TLD.

-- 
Jeff S Wheeler <jsw at inconcepts.biz>
Sr Network Operator  /  Innovative Network Concepts




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