[CPWG] Verisign

[John McCormac]

On 07/01/2020 18:03, Jonathan Zuck wrote:
> This may have changed but the CCT report found far fewer defensive 
> registrations in the new gTLDs than expected because the volume would 
> just be too high. Instead, other means of monitoring, etc., were 
> employed. Rather than accept defensive registrations as a solution, 
> should we perhaps suggest blocking as an alternative? Regulating an 
> entire market to facilitate an unfortunate activity seems wrong.

The problem with using the CCT-RT report, Jonathan, is that the CCT-RT 
were all knowledgeable about everything other than domain name metrics, 
measuring web usage and development in TLDs and understanding domain 
name markets. The opinion polls of "awareness" of new gTLDs were 
difficult to reconcile with reality because, as had been demonstrated by 
the sales of new gTLD domain names, the public was, and still is, 
largely unaware of the new gTLDs.

A lot of work went into dealing with intellectual property and 
trademarks prior to the launch of the new gTLDs. The problem is that the 
bulk of brand protection activity is not based on trademarks or service 
marks. It is from small businesses protecting their brands in other 
relevant TLDs to the TLD where they operate their primary website.

Most of the new gTLDs were aimed at potential markets that were much 
smaller than the artificial scarcity created by Domain Tasting 
suggested. The reason for this was that ICANN's multi-stakeholder model 
meant that little could be done about Domain Tasting for years. The 
deleting domain names were also targeted in Domain Tasting. The public 
couldn't get access to deleting domain names and this created an 
artificial scarcity of "good" domain names.

The numbers are horrifying and I listed them, by month and by year, in 
the first few chapters of the Domnomics book and those chapters and the 
statistics on Domain Tasting in .COM over 2005 to 2009 are free to read 
on the "Look Inside" link on Amazon ( 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0827FL1SW ) . This wasn't domainers 
registering a few domain names. This was industrialised plunder of 
COM/NET/ORG by a small number of registrars. These weren't domain name 
speculators with a few hundred domain names. These were ICANN accredited 
registrars that were registering and deleting millions of domain names 
each day.

ICANN made things worse by wandering off down the yellow brick road of 
"competition". ICANN, it seemed, existed in its own little bubble. To 
the public, it seemed that ICANN couldn't even understand that it was a 
simple "supply and demand" problem rather than a "competition" problem. 
The PDP on Domain Tasting helped but its statistics only focused on a 
single month and it only launched when Domain Tasting was completely out 
of control in the main legacy gTLDs. The real damage to the credibility 
of gTLDs had been done and the growth in the ccTLDs had been kickstarted 
by this episode. Eventually, ICANN did the right thing with Domain Tasting.

Up to the launch of .MOBI, most new TLDs got a financial boost from 
defensive registrations. But that all changed for the new gTLDs. Some of 
the registries held back thousands of potentially valuable domain names 
for themselves. This had a major impact on the sales in these new gTLDs.

As a result of the lack of sales, some of the new gTLD registries 
indulged in heavy discounting to inflate their zone files. The problem 
with this is that these registrations don't renew well. It had to be 
repeatedly pointed out to the CCT-RT that the new gTLDs with these 
discounted registrations were highly abnormal and that the claimed 
"parking" levels in some of these new gTLDs were wrong. (The "parking" 
report on which CCT-RT relied was claiming bluechip legacy gTLD/ccTLD 
levels of "parking" in bubble gTLDs.) Some of these bubble gTLDs lost 
over 80% of their domain names within a year. That does not happen with 
bluechip gTLDs and ccTLDs.

Suggesting blocking as an alternative is a continuation of confusion. 
Brand gTLDs were meant to solve that problem and give brand owners their 
own gTLD so that they would not have to face this problem again. And yet 
the bulk of the registry agreement terminations since 2014 have been for 
brand gTLDs. The reason, strange as it seems, is ICANN's decision to add 
a cost to the AGP process.

Perhaps people don't realise the part that the abuse of the AGP in 
Domain Tasting played in encouraging defensive registrations. Brands and 
IP were massively targeted by Domain Tasters. Once a cost was added to 
the AGP process, a lot of that activity declined and while this form of 
DNS abuse still exists, it is nowhere near on the scale it was when AGP 
was being abused and the UDRP is once more a usable tool as brand owners 
don't have to deal with tens of millions of potentially infringing 
domain names each month that are registered and deleted before the UDRP 
can be filed.

One important point about Verisign has not been mentioned yet. That is 
the launch of the .WEB gTLD. As a gTLD, the .NET has been in long-term 
decline since the end of Domain Tasting in 2009. The .WEB is the Sword 
of Damocles to a lot of borderline new gTLDs. It is also the one new 
gTLD where the concerns over brand protection are far more global than 
those with some of the smaller new gTLDs.

Regards...jmcc
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