<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Paul<div><br></div><div>I am not sure what your basis of jurisprudence is but where i come from the law is intended to protect the rights of those presumed innocent. I have never seen any credible system of jurisprudence that elevates efficiency over such rights. Nor have i seen one that is built around a presumption of badness.</div><div><br></div><div>I for one will not support a system with known problems simply because the majority of cases brought concern abuse or clearly offensive conduct.</div><div><br></div><div>Thus, the report is of little significance other than to confirm that there is a problem. The issue of what system is used to address the problem or what rules are used remains to be seen.</div><div><br></div><div>Paul<br><br><div id="AppleMailSignature">Sent from my iPad</div><div><br>On 17 Nov 2017, at 14:30, icannlists <<a href="mailto:icannlists@winston.com">icannlists@winston.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>Hi George,</span><br><span></span><br><span>You raise a fair point. With just 268 US based marks examined, the abuse is beyond rampant. If we are to extrapolate to other well-known marks, for example the excellent examples you mention - pharma, childrens toys, the abuse moves from beyond rampant to just plain old staggering, even without assuming (as you did in your note) of a 1 to 1 ration of abuse between the 268 noted examples and the remaining marks in the world.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Unfortunately for the abusers in the domain name industry, it will not be possible to un-shine the light that the Georgia Tech study has shown on them. It is up to all of us to deal with the head on. Glad to see you joining in that effort!!</span><br><span></span><br><span>Best,</span><br><span>Paul</span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span>-----Original Message-----</span><br><span>From: gnso-rpm-wg [<a href="mailto:gnso-rpm-wg-bounces@icann.org">mailto:gnso-rpm-wg-bounces@icann.org</a>] On Behalf Of George Kirikos</span><br><span>Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 5:49 PM</span><br><span>To: gnso-rpm-wg <<a href="mailto:gnso-rpm-wg@icann.org">gnso-rpm-wg@icann.org</a>></span><br><span>Subject: Re: [gnso-rpm-wg] Article on Combo-squatting study conducted by Georgia Instutute of Technology and Stony Brook University affecting our discussion of Trademark + Industry Terms in the TMCH, Sunrise and Claims (among other RPMs that it may also implicate)</span><br><span></span><br><span>P.S. Where the math really starts to break down is if one attempts to extrapolate this to the larger population of all markholders and marks worldwide. Remember, this was just 268 *US* ones. Even "Lego"</span><br><span>wouldn't have been on the list (famous for their voluminous UDRP filings), since their Alexa rank is around 2647 worldwide, 1,785 in the USA (see <a href="https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lego.com">https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lego.com</a> ), and thus not in the top 500. Many of those pharma brands that are famous and see a lot of cybersquatting aren't in the Alexa top 500 either (I won't name them, lest they trigger spam warnings).</span><br><span></span><br><span>What % of worldwide marks is 268? Far below 1%. But, let's suppose that they represent 1% of cybersquatting. Would it be argued that 2.7 million "bad" domains for that subset of 268 marks means that the number of "bad" domains classified as "combosquatting" must be 100 times 2.7 million, or 270 million? Depending on how one extrapolates, one might even generate a claimed total abuse (just from combosquatting, not even counting all the other types of typosquatting, etc.) that exceeds the actual total number of domain name registrations quite easily (which is absurd).</span><br><span></span><br><span>Sincerely,</span><br><span></span><br><span>George Kirikos</span><br><span>416-588-0269</span><br><span><a href="http://www.leap.com/">http://www.leap.com/</a></span><br><span></span><br><span>On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 5:23 PM, George Kirikos <<a href="mailto:icann@leap.com">icann@leap.com</a>> wrote:</span><br><blockquote type="cite"><span>The numbers appear overstated. After a first pass, I don't see the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>complete list of all 268 of the marks they studied (maybe I missed</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>it), but several (Amazon, Adobe, Delta, Yahoo) still appear to be</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>dictionary words where it would be false to claim that Mark+Dictionary</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>word is automatically "bad." Indeed, when you look at table 7 at the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>top right of page 11, they classify 86.6% of the so-called</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>"combosquatting pages" as "Unknown", and only 13.39% as "Malicious".</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>And of those alleged "malicious" ones, 69.9% were an ambiguous</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>"trademark abuse" (not phishing, social engineering, or "affiliate</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>abuse"), which seems likely to yield even more false positives.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Their attempt at detecting "false positives" leaves much to be</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>desired, i.e. whitelisting only the top 10,000 Alexa domains (see page</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>4, Alexa list). My company's <a href="http://math.com">math.com</a> domain name wouldn't get</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>white-listed by that standard (and it gets millions of visitors/year).</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Neither would <a href="http://school.com">school.com</a>. Alexa Top 10,000 sites get enormous traffic</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>--- many legitimate but lower traffic sites wouldn't be whitelisted</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>by their methodology.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Importantly, they didn't seem to use WHOIS or Zone Files in their data</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>sets (see page 4, section 3.2). i.e. they trumpet the "468 billion DNS</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>records" (many DNS requests and website visits are generated by bots,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>not human beings, these days), but there are perhaps roughly 150</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>million gTLD domain names for which ICANN makes policy.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>And it would seem, by their methodology, that they might even count</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>defensive registrations by brand owners themselves as "combo</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>squatting". e.g. if Microsoft owns <a href="http://MicrosoftOffice.com">MicrosoftOffice.com</a>, does that get</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>accounted for properly? 2.7 million domains divided by 268 marks</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>equals 10,074 domains/mark, which sounds like a lot, but Microsoft</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>already owns tens of thousands of domains, according to DomainTools:</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span><a href="https://whois.domaintools.com/microsoft.com">https://whois.domaintools.com/microsoft.com</a></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>as do many of the other markholders like Google, Yahoo, etc. I hope</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>those weren't counted improperly.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>I think seeing the results by TLD would also be useful (e.g. .TK</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>domains are free, and openly abused), as well as what effect the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>"promos" from new gTLDs has had (e.g. domains under $1/yr), and</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>whether historic domain tasting might have also accounted for some of</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>the measurements.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Not saying the problem doesn't exist, as there are lots of bad actors.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>But, if it was a "growing threat" as claimed, the evidence would be</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>directly observable via increased lawsuits, increased UDRP filings,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>etc. More important would be to discern whether there is an increase</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>in the number of bad actors, rather than just measuring things by</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>domains. e.g. 2.7 million bad actors registering one domain name each</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>is a lot different than 10 bad actors registering 270,000 bad domains</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>each. I think the latter situation is to be preferred, from a policy</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>perspective (i.e. better to have tools to handle the</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>industrial-cybersquatter, where the incidence of false positives and</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>collateral damage from policymaking will be lower). Others might</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>correct me, but it's my sense from media reports that more of the bad</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>actors have shifted their focus to social media and apps abuse, rather</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>than domain abuse, to generate traffic (e.g. Facebook, Android apps,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>etc.). Due to tools like Chrome "Safebrowing" blacklists, rarely do I</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>ever actually encounter abusive domains these days.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Sincerely,</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>George Kirikos</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>416-588-0269</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span><a href="http://www.leap.com/">http://www.leap.com/</a></span><br></blockquote><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>gnso-rpm-wg mailing list</span><br><span><a href="mailto:gnso-rpm-wg@icann.org">gnso-rpm-wg@icann.org</a></span><br><span><a href="https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-rpm-wg">https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-rpm-wg</a></span><br><span></span><br><span>________________________________</span><br><span>The contents of this message may be privileged and confidential. 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