[Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] France seizes France.com from man who’s had it since ‘94, so he sues - Ars Technica

Wed May 2 19:09:41 UTC 2018

An interesting case.

Will be following the case very closely.  There's case for both sides. Keen
to see the ruling as it will set a precedence for other country names with
.com.

Regards

*Ali Hussein*

*Principal*

*AHK & Associates*

Tel: +254 713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>

13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing,

Chiromo Road, Westlands,

Nairobi, Kenya.

Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
organizations that I work with.

On Wed, May 2, 2018 at 4:53 PM, Alexander Schubert <
alexander at schubert.berlin> wrote:

> Robin,
>
>
>
> People are free to “use” the term “FRANCE” as much as they want –
> obviously in the DNS as well. But cybersquatting on “.france” or “.paris”
> is a bad idea. The term “Paris” doesn’t “belong” to the French Government,
> or the City Government of Paris, France. And nobody ever said so – and
> OBVIOUSLY there is no legal reasoning that would support such notion. But
> the underlying problem is a bit like “access to beaches”:
> Do you want that the entire coast of California would be closed off to the
> public – because some real estate corporation reserved all access rights –
> and grants access only to those they fancy (e.g. people who have a house at
> the beach – so they have their private beach)? That would be the result if
> a “brand” squatted in “.paris”.
>
> There might be a “brand” or a “innovative business idea” that wants to
> cybersquat on .paris – but the good people of Paris (essentially all
> Parises in the world) have a right (and it doesn’t matter whether that
> right is written in stone or not – whether there is a “law” of any sorts)
> to use the name of their city as identifier. So IF somebody wanted to use
> .paris (I know it’s delegated) – then shouldn’t the people of Paris France
> (and potentially other significant places called Paris, such as in TX) be
> at least looped in? And that’s what the 2012 AG does: It requires that the
> representatives of The People in a given location sign off on the gTLD
> operation plan. I do not really understand what is so crazy terrible “off”
> on such notion?
>
> If there are no prerequisite requirements (letter of non-objection) for
> applying for a city TLD I can GUARANTEE you that ALL cities with a
> population larger 500,000  (hint: it’s over 1,000 cities that fall in that
> category) will be applied for by just a handful of applicants – in an
> attempt to blanket the city space. And they have ZERO intention to do good
> for the people in that city – they just want to plunder the namespace. A
> city gTLD is a valuable infrastructure resource just as the street grid –
> and needs to be operated, managed and policed with GREATEST care – and in
> conjunction with the local authorities and operators. Anything else is
> BONKERS. At least in my mind.
>
>
>
> Sorry for ranting – but city gTLDs are something that touches my heart.
> Not EVERYTHING on this planet should be “for sale for the highest bid”. At
> some point the “common good” is more important. Maybe I am too German.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alexander.berlin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 [mailto:gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5-bounces at icann.org]
> *On Behalf Of *Robin Gross
> *Sent:* Monday, April 30, 2018 8:24 PM
> *To:* Icann Gnso Newgtld Wg Wt5 <gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5 at icann.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Gnso-newgtld-wg-wt5] France seizes France.com from man
> who’s had it since ‘94, so he sues - Ars Technica
>
>
>
> It is also a reminder of  the level of bullying that some governments are
> capable of doing in this space and their disregard for the legitimate
> rights of others to use words in the DNS.  This is a serious concern -- to
> see such little regard for the freedom of expression rights to use words
> with a geographic meaning.  Absent an actual internationally agreed legal
> rule that holds people can’t use the word “France” or other words with
> geographic meanings, it would be a huge mistake for ICANN to adopt such an
> anti-innovation and pro-censorship position in domain name policy as
> demanded by some govts here.
>
>
>
> Robin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 29, 2018, at 3:36 PM, farzaneh badii <farzaneh.badii at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Great, lets keep it limited. But thanks Greg for reminding us where we can
> end up..   some  supported two-letter second level domain names that
> correspond to cctlds to go to governments and  cctld managers in new gtlds.
> Some of those were generic pronouns like in and it. But no one had mercy on
> generic names and no justifiable reason was given other than oh governments
> own everything when it comes to their cctld... or at least can claim
> ownership. The irony? Some of those cctld managers are actually private
> companies benefiting handsomely from this.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Farzaneh
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 4:17 PM, Carlos Raul Gutierrez <
> carlosraul at gutierrez.se> wrote:
>
> Thanks Greg!
>
> Very interesting but I'm afraid our scope is limited to the top level.....
>
>
>
> On April 29, 2018 1:31:59 PM CST, Javier Rua <javrua at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Greg.
>
> Javier Rúa-Jovet
>
>
>
> +1-787-396-6511
>
> twitter: @javrua
>
> skype: javier.rua1
>
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/javrua
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 29, 2018, at 2:05 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I thought this article would be of interest to WT5.
>
>
>
> Greg
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc at gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 12:37 PM
> Subject: France seizes France.com <http://france.com/> from man who’s had
> it since ‘94, so he sues - Ars Technica
> To: <gregshatanipc at gmail.com>
>
>
>
> France seizes France.com <http://france.com/> from man who’s had it since
> ‘94, so he sues - Ars Technica
>
>
> https://apple.news/AxM_G3MkGSXW8YOXTibo8wg
>
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>
> --
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>
>
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