[Tmch-iag] T1 Data Locations

[Tom Barrett]

This is a correction to the note I submitted Monday regarding Data Locations
and Data Mining..

In the note, I stated that the list of eligible strings could be safely
distributed by the TMCH without risk of data mining.  
But I realized this morning (while rowing at the gym) that this would create
a false sense of security.

Even the list of registrable strings can be data mined to determine a
trademark owner's TMCH strategy.  

For example, let's say I wanted to know what trademarks Google has submitted
to the clearinghouse.  All I would need to do is the following:

a. Do a free owner search at the USPTO trademark database

b. take the resulting list of trademarks and strip out any special
characters to generate a list of possible domain names

c. check the resulting list of possible domain names matching Google
trademarks against the registrable strings in the clearinghouse (either by a
central query or distributed list)

d. The result would tell me what US trademarks owned by Google were
protected in the clearinghouse.  I could repeat this process for other
jurisdictions, such as Australia, Japan, etc.  

There could be some slight noise in the data, since it is possible that
there is a trademark submitted by a different trademark owner that is an
identical match to one owned by Google, but that Google decided not to
submit to the TMCH.

Nonetheless, it is clear that determining the owner identity from just the
list of registrable strings in the clearinghouse would be easy to do.  A
data miner would not even need access to the claims notices.

In order to detect this type of data mining, we need to log every lookup of
a registrable TMCH string.  This is easy to do if the TMCH data is
centralized (think Whois).  If the TMCH data is distributed, then such
logging would need to be self-reported by registries and registrars.  As a
practical matter, self-reporting by registries and registrars would not be
very reliable, even if there were penalties for non-compliance added to the
registry and registrar contracts.

One final thought regarding Data Locations.  This decision does not need to
be "either-or".  The TMCH could start out with a centralized data approach.
After the first round of gTLD's, this issue could be re-visited to see if
data distribution is warranted.


Best regards,

Tom Barrett
EnCirca



-----Original Message-----
From: tmch-iag-bounces at icann.org [mailto:tmch-iag-bounces at icann.org] On
Behalf Of Tom Barrett
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 5:37 PM
To: tmch-iag at icann.org
Subject: [Tmch-iag] T1 Data Locations



IAG T1 comments - Distribution of TMCH Data January 30, 2012 Tom Barrett -
EnCirca

The main topic of discussion for the IAG last week was concerned with
distribution of TMCH data.

After comparing estimates of the maximum volumes for the TMCH to the query
volume, uptime and responsiveness of existing registries, it seems very
clear that the TMCH data could be kept solely in a central database
utilizing a technical architecture similar in scale to some of the existing
smaller gTLD registries, such as .MOBI and .TEL.  This level of architecture
for the TMCH could ensure the uptime and responsiveness required by
registries and registrars while satisfying the trademark owner concerns for
data security.

We agree with and confirm the following:
- The TMCH data is proprietary to trademark owners and is not currently in
the public domain . 

- Prevention of data mining should be a priority for the TMCH

- Distributing the TMCH data makes data mining impossible to prevent

- Distribution of the TMCH data is not even necessary given the expected
scale of the TMCH

Please see the attached document for a detailed examination of these issues,
including an analysis of how big the TMCH needs to be compared to existing
gTLD registries.

I look forward to your comments.

Best regards,

Tom Barrett
EnCirca

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