[gnso-rpm-wg] A Brave New World Without Sunrises or the TMCH

[George Kirikos]

Greg,

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 5:38 PM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd be happy not to "waste money" on defensive registrations.  How do you
> propose to replace the benefit that they give to those "defensive
> registrants" (i.e., taking a domain out of circulation, where that
> registrant is concerned about the potential abuse of that domain)?

I'm 100% on your side on this issue, that unwanted defensive
registrations are a burden. As an economics-driven person, I hate to
see money wasted.

1. There is no need to "take a domain name out of circulation", if the
domain name ends up in the hands of a good faith buyer using it in a
different context. To use the example of "apple", why would Apple (of
iPhone fame) care if Apple.recipes or Apple.menu is used for the
actual posting of recipes for the fruit, etc? For a long, long time,
Amazon.net has been owned  owned by a legitimate entity different from
the owner of Amazon.com, for example.  The world hasn't ended....(and
that's one less $10/yr renewal fee for Jeff Bezos' company).

2. For those domains that *are* misused, reduce enforcement costs
(i.e. financial penalties on the landrush registrant in a UDRP, that
get paid directly to the victor, etc.).

This goes back to a point that J. Scott and I had informal agreement
on a while ago, namely that the "representations" section of the UDRP
might need more "teeth"

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-02-25-en

"2. Your Representations. By applying to register a domain name, or by
asking us to maintain or renew a domain name registration, you hereby
represent and warrant to us that (a) the statements that you made in
your Registration Agreement are complete and accurate; (b) to your
knowledge, the registration of the domain name will not infringe upon
or otherwise violate the rights of any third party; (c) you are not
registering the domain name for an unlawful purpose; and (d) you will
not knowingly use the domain name in violation of any applicable laws
or regulations. It is your responsibility to determine whether your
domain name registration infringes or violates someone else's rights."

There's little downside to that, for liars. Impose some on the "more
sophisticated" (and those participating in landrush arguably are), and
the economics of cybersquatting change. You'll note most
cybersquatting happens on domains bought for less than $100 (i.e.
registered at reg-fee, typically, of $10 or less). If there's a
possibility of losing $5,000, that'd be more serious.

Sunrise and landrush registrants arguably are "sophisticated", so
raise the standards. Eliminate sunrise, and the sunrise demand (those
130 domains) shifts to landrush. What would then happen in landrush?

Domains like Google.TLD, Adsense.TLD, Microsoft.TLD, etc. matching a
famous brand would almost assuredly go to their (famous) markholders,
if they applied during landrush (which presumably they would, if
they're worried enough to apply in sunrise today). If there were
multiple applicants (which seems to be your concern??), what kind of
idiot would be outbidding those firms, especially if there were actual
financial penalties supplementing the existing UDRP? And if those
famous firms did lose an auction, certainly they'd later win at UDRP,
URS, etc. (unless those registrants simply sat on the domains and did
absolutely nothing, which arguably is an even better outcome for the
brand owners, since they're not paying the renewal costs! it might be
a minor 'annoyance', but as long as there's no misuse, there's little
harm)

But, common dictionary terms like domains like Hotel.TLD, Flowers.TLD,
etc., that previously were gamed in sunrise would now be opened up to
landrush. That would kill the business model of the "gamers", since
there'd be competition for those terms. [simplified analysis, since
some of those would be marked 'premium' the way new gTLDs are handled
now] The highest and best use for those terms wouldn't be
cybersquatting-related.

As an aside, as I noted in chat the other day, I'd also suggest
reducing "carrying" costs for defensive registrations, by halving the
registry fees for domain names with no nameservers. E.g. if you own
the typo domain wwwbrand.com [note the lack of a dot between 'w' and
'b'], have it in the zone file, and are redirecting it to
www.brand.com, registry costs would be unchanged (since the registrant
is benefiting from the domain, and it's in the zone file). But, let's
say you own BrandSucks.com or other "worthless" domains, and own it
for purely defensive registration, with no nameservers so that it's
not in the zone file and not resolving -- I'd chop the registry fees
for those by half (or some other amount). Those are a complete waste
of money. e.g. domains like those at:

http://domainnamewire.com/2016/08/17/franklin-coveys-leader-defensive-domain-names/
http://domainnamewire.com/2015/09/22/kaiser-registers-killing-domains/

should be discounted (by the registry, and then savings passed along
by registrars to registrants) if they're not in the zone file.

So, if we can get the curative rights enforcement costs on brand
owners lowered, and also reduce the incentives for cybersquatting
(e.g. financial penalties losing UDRPs for domains registered in a
landrush would kill demand too, besides compensating brand owners),
would that be a step in the right direction? I really do think there
are ways to "sunset" the entire sunrise system, while still leading to
an overall "win" for everyone.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
416-588-0269
http://www.leap.com/