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

[George Kirikos]

Hello,

On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 1:01 AM, Greg Shatan <gregshatanipc at gmail.com> wrote:
>Anyone who has maintained a trademark and domain name
> portfolio for a company or a celebrity knows how many abusive domain names
> there are out there, and how many they have had to acquire (by various
> means) over the years.  A world where there is no need for a company to take
> a domain name out of circulation, because there was no need to do so is a
> pipe dream.

We're talking about 130 domains/TLD, in sunrise. The numbers speak for
themselves. Use it, or lose it.

> I won't speak for Apple (since I don't represent them) but let's talk about
> a hypothetical "Peach" company. If there was a 100% chance that
> peach.recipes or peach.menu would only be used for recipes or other good
> faith unrelated uses, that would be great for many companies. But there's no
> way to know.

As I said, raise the bar in landrush. Share liability with registrars
(who can't escape liability easily). Insurance rates would be higher
for "risky" domain name registrants. e.g. the cost for Apple (iPhone
maker) to indemnify CSC or Markmonitor to register Apple.TLD would be
$0. Cost for John Zuccarini would be much higher, to indemnify his
registrar against risk of misuse.

> A solution that involves trademark owners spending even more money, and
> solving every problem by throwing money at the domain name industry, is a
> non-starter.

They're not spending that money now (130 sunrise registrations,
remember). And they're spending perhaps $10MM/yr on TMCH (direct fees,
plus time, etc.). Spend smarter, by eliminating the ineffective TMCH
that has too many negative consequences upon others.

> Based on the discussion earlier, it didn't seem to me that Flowers.tld was
> "gamed" no matter what the definition of gaming.  I didn't dig through the
> back and forth on hotel.tld.  I'm concerned with a lot of the accusations of
> gaming that were made that didn't seem to hold water as they were
> examined....

If they relied upon an obscure country's registered TM (let's see the
TMCH opened up to check) to register in sunrise, then I (and many
others) would disagree. The mantra that "a TM is a TM is a TM" is
untrue, despite how often some want to repeat it.

> Financial penalties on defaulting respondents is also not going to solve
> anything, because they will be nowhere to be found.

Read what I proposed more closely. By involving registrars (contracted
parties) to share in the liability of landush ("know your client",
etc.), someone to pay is much easier to find. (registrars have to have
liability insurance in place, too).

If folks keep an open mind, and just look at the numbers, it's not as
outlandish as you might think. As I noted above, I'd be happy to see
new gTLDs keep failing.....but, at least I'm putting forth some ideas
that eliminate some of the unfairness in the bad policies that were
part of the sausage factory when they were created.

Sincerely,

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