Rick Schwartz has ferociously been on the attack since getting hit with a UDRP on the domain name Saveme.com.
As I’m sure all of you have read by now, Rick registered the domain name Saveme.com in 1996 and now based on a domain name registered in 2010, SaveMe.com.br, owned by Márcio Mello Chaves, and Heitor Chaves filed a UDRP with WIPO to take the .com domain name away.
Of course its outrageous that someone can register a ccTLD 15 years after the .com is registered and try to take to the .com.
Yet outrageous decisions happen in UDRP world, Paul Keating in recent guest posts on TheDomains.com highlighted two such cases recently and you can read about them here and here which led Phil Corwin of the ICA to send a letter to ICANN demanding an investigation into the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) and there handling of UDRP cases.
As outrageous as UDRP decisions are, we already know that Trademark groups are fighting to expand the Uniform Resolution System, one in which if place could have been used by the SaveMe.com.br, folks.
Under the URS, Rick would only get a chance to file a 300 word response, no right to a three member panel, and would only have cost $300-$500 to file not the $4K the owners of SaveMe.com.br paid to bring this action. Yesterday at ICANN Phil Corwin again representing domain holders interest took issue with the ICANN board on the whole URS issue.
Phil Corwin has over the last few years been a literally a one man army fighting a huge army of trademark interests, as well as congressional members in favor of such bills as SOPA and PIPA.
Phil has represents domain holders at ICANN, in Congress, through lobbying efforts and most recently as an a often cited writer on issues of dire importance to domain name holders.
Actually Phil is only one to fight for domain holders interest in Congress and at ICANN.
As the domain industry is growing the world is finding out that domains are very valuable.
The new gTLD program regardless on your opinion on its success, its shinning a light on the industry like never before.
Trademark holders were out in force at ICANN from Verizon to Google to Fairwinds, the leader of CADNA, and many, many more.
We had one representative Phil Corwin of the ICA.
As I previously wrote, Law enforcement was also at ICANN with a strong show of force, with the FBI, Homeland Security, ICE, Interpol and the rest meeting together, pressuring ICANN to make registrars gather more information on its customers which will led to every domain holder paying more money to register a domain. There presence was also a great reminder that without SOPA or PIPA they can, and have seized domain names, without notice to the domain holder and certainly prior to the domain holder having a chance to defend themselves.
So while we are that Rick’s case is outrageous its only one case.
If Rick wins his case and the Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) claim as he should, the case will not set any real precedent as the UDRP panels by their own rules, don’t have to follow any previous decisions, unlike US courts. The .Br holder will have a RDNH ruling against them, which carries no consequences.
On the other hand, if the UDRP panel comes to another outrageous decision and hands the domain over, then Rick will file a case with a federal court, however the UDRP loss with stay on the record books.
You see under current rules you can’t “appeal” a UDRP. All you can do is file a federal lawsuit stopping the transfer and have the case heard in the courts.
So even if you win the federal case, the UDRP still stands.
Get 3 losses, whether you win the appeal or not (with any 1 within the last 4 years) and Rick or any domain holder would be barred from applying for a new gTLD.
The .Br holder can bring 100 UDRP in which they are shown to be engaging in RDNH and they can still apply to operate a new gTLD.
It’s the UDRP that need reform.
It’s not this case that’s going to get it changed.
The only chance we have as a domain community to come together and demand UDRP reform it and the only guy that’s going to represent domain holders in that process is Phil Corwin of the ICA.
That’s why I give them $10K a year.
That’s why every domainer should give them some amount every year too.
Including Mr. Schwartz.
The last thing I wanted to do was get into this. But since you brought this up, this was one of the biggest reasons for resigning from the ICA as a founding member.
I wanted to establish case law as I believe that would have more teeth than bloviating at ICANN with all due respect to Phil and you and Berryhill and everyone else that attends. This is an opportunity not a threat as I see it. Case Law is what it is all about and I have held those DEEP feelings for many years. This is how you insure things from where I sit. But now, we will have both approaches.
Why can’t Rick file the UDRP against SaveMe.com.br, owned by Márcio Mello Chaves, and Heitor Chaves?
Terrorism, Money, the Internet, and ICANN
There are .SOON going to be some disclosures that may help SAVEME from ICANN and the rest of the Domain Industrial Complex. [No it is not alternate roots]
Owning more than a couple of domains will likely become very expensive.
The ICANN annual charge is $25,000 per year per domain, up from 18 cents.
Other companies and governments will likely be charging similar amounts.
The ICANN meeting helped to flush out the big players with the targets on them saying .TAXME or was that .TAXI ?
Slightly off topic… You point out….
>> Get 3 losses, whether you win the appeal or not (with any 1 within
>> the last 4 years) and Rick or any domain holder would be barred
>> from applying for a new gTLD.
Can you clarify this a little bit? Does that mean a company that lost 2 UDRP’s within the last year, but has no other lost UDRP’s, can still apply for a TLD? Or what about a company that lost 3 UDRP’s but have not lost any in the last year…? Or does this mean if you have lost even 1 UDRP in the last 4 years you can not apply for a gTLD? What if you lost 2 UDRP’s (not 3) and had 1 of them in the last 4 years.
The wording of 3 losses, with 1 within the last 4 years is a bit confusing.
“I wanted to establish case law as I believe that would have more teeth than bloviating at ICANN”
The U.S. Government has made it clear they plan to get rid of ICANN.
In the new video interview on the ICANN web-site they claim they are headed to Washington next week to find out why. It should be obvious why. ICANN has very
few followers beyond the highly paid groupies.
The US FTC should be able to stop the new gTLD program in its tracks.
If that does not happen then there will certainly be a lot of “case law” as
each new gTLD is challenged in US Federal Courts. That could tie up applicants
for years.
Candy.com
vs
.Candy
How long before that fight starts?
“there will certainly be a lot of “case law” as each new gTLD is challenged in US Federal Courts. That could tie up applicants for years.”
By the way, ICANN Applicants for BRANDS should be advised that they could lose their defacto Trademark by becoming Generic.
It will be ironic to see un-informed ICANN Applicants ending up in U.S. Federal Court trying to save ALL of their domains (even old ones) because they tried to grab the Brass.Ring of a gTLD.
Many domainers are NOT happy with all of the attention ICANN is drawing to their little club.
Candy.com vs .Candy
How long before that fight starts?
According to the naive ICANN groupies, there will be no fight.
They believe there will only be one .CANDY Applicant because people are told to work together BEFORE April 2012 to file one application.
They will then all sit around in Santa Cruz on the beach and sing Kum-Bah-Yah waiting for their .CANDY.
“Get 3 losses, whether you win the appeal or not (with any 1 within the last 4 years) and Rick or any domain holder would be barred from applying for a new gTLD.”
That is not entirely accurate Michael. The language in the DAG specifically states decisions need to be “adverse and final”. If Rick lost his UDRP and then subsequently overturned that decision in court, that would NOT constitute an adverse and final decision.
UDRP losses alone will not wind up being damning in this process.
“there will certainly be a lot of “case law” as each new gTLD is challenged in US Federal Courts. That could tie up applicants for years.” – challenged by whom exactly. I could see countersuit for tortious interference, malicious prosecution. Your .COM name is just that. A name. It bestows no other right. A TLD is something entirely different. Bring your wallet. There will some very large ones in the application pool and in the auction process thereafter.
I would go so far as to say the system is corrupt.
The concept of “organizations” that can be paid to take away intellectual property (domains) without the same type of real legal due process that is required in similar situations is flawed.
Eventually, when this kind of “legalized domain stealing” gets rampant beyond control, I think we will see countries decide to simply take over Every Aspect of their own CCTLDS.
China will decide what happens with .CN, Germany with .DE and so on.
This is one of the reasons I have always liked .US so much.
It may sound far fetched, but I think one of these days countries are going to say, “Enough of this shit. We are taking absolute and total control of our own extension.”
As for the global tld conflicts, they need to be under the jurisdiction of courts and laws …not these “paid organizations”.
Mike–
Thanks as always for your public support of ICA. Many in the industry may not know that you attend most ICANN meetings and not just for business purposes but with a keen interest in the public policy aspects.
I would not publicly state that any particular individual should or should not join or at least donate to ICA. But I do think that our work is important enough that everyone in the domain industry should at least consider it.
I learned long ago that engaging in the public policy process is a 3-front war (and sometimes a 3-ring circus) — regulatory, judicial and legislative.
For us the regulatory is not just NTIA, FTC, etc. but also ICANN. Yes it’s a crazy process but would domainers prefer that I not speak out at public forums, file comment letters, develop reklationships with Board members and senior staff — and that they just hear from trademark interests, governments, law enforcement, etc.?
As for case law, even when one individual files a case it can be damn helpful to have a trade association file an amicus brief in support, so that the judge has notice of the bigger poicture. Sometimes it can be the deciding factor.
And if you win that case, and the trademark interests start lobbying in Washington for “reform” that legislatively reverses the decision, who’s going to be on Capitol Hill making the counterargument?
Even Fortune 500 companies with their own lobbying offices and outside counsel support trade groups because they know the collective is more powerful than any one individual or company. That isn’t going to change no matter how ICANN or the DNS evolves.
“Even Fortune 500 companies with their own lobbying…know the collective is more powerful than any one individual or company”
They also have their own DNS servers and software experts who can read the code.
The DNS has changed since 1998 when ICANN was formed.
One small example is the volume of DNS traffic that now flows thru Google via 8.8.8.8. Google can impose any rules they like on RESOLVING new gTLDs. That can be ad-words re-born.
It is now no secret that new DNS Resolvers will be appearing to “massage” the DNS feeds. The well-heeled Applicants will be contacted for their annual fees to be resolved. It will not be cheap.
What do they say about taking .CANDY from a .BABY ?
Case Law?
Wouldn’t phase one have to include something like, I don’t know, establishing a global understanding of Trademark Law.. and then actually creating a proper jurisdiction for domains… and then making this all affordable and fair enough that people can defend both sides?
Oh that’s right, Rick only gives a shit about Rick. Never mind.
I’m sure Mike Mann would LOVE to have strict case laws so he could have his team show the courts his automated registering system that accidentally picks up trademark domains without his knowledge.
I didn’t think it was a requirement to sign up to the UDRP. I thought that was discretionary on the part of each ccTLD.
It doesn’t matter what happens – those without wealth always get fucked in the end. That’s why everyone is racing to get to the top.
@Dabney
So like Know a bit say the language in the DAG is clear that if you have 3 losses with one coming in the last 4 years you are disqualified from applying.
So if you have 3 losses but the last one was more than 4 years ago your fine.
@Know
Since UDRP by their own terms are not appealable I think your argument while well founded may not ultimately succeed.
Of course that is a theoretical disagreement we can have but the real world implications are huge.
If you include a domainer in that situation as a officer, director or 15% of greater shareholder with other people in those roles as well someone could object to the application on the basis of that domainer being included in the app, which would at least greatly delay the whole app, not making your partners particularly pleased with you and at worst wind up in the rejection of the App and the loss of $185K plus all other costs and fees.
Practically speaking I think you would find any domainer in that position relegated to a non-director, non shareholder and less than 15% shareholder to avoid the whole problem
Also I assume you agree that the company engaged in DNRH has no restrictions on their application for a new gTLD regardless of the number of such holdings against them. Patently unfair.
@Rick
Under the DAG if there is an application for a .Candy you can file and object through the process which is going to cost you up to six figures depending on how hard you want to object, how many panelists you want, etc, etc.
I think if you don’t object through the process its highly likely a court would rule you waived your rights since you didn’t make use of the procedure clearly laid out in the DAG.
You very well might need a TM on the term Candy to win the day.
“I can’t pin it down greater than that because we’re running an experiment.”
ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker admits the new gTLDs are just “an experiment”
In the last experiment, people got a t-shirt for their $40,000
@Mike — Actually, the final Applicant Guidebook places the same restrictions on serial reverse domain name hijackers as it does on serial cybersquatters — ICA fought for that and got it included.
See Section 1.2.1 (m) [Eligibility/Automatic Disqualification]–
“m. has been involved in a pattern of adverse,
final decisions indicating that the applicant
or individual named in the application was
engaged in cybersquatting as defined in
the Uniform Domain Name Dispute
Resolution Policy (UDRP), the Anti-
Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act
(ACPA), or other equivalent legislation, or
was engaged in reverse domain name
hijacking under the UDRP or bad faith or
reckless disregard under the ACPA or other
equivalent legislation. Three or more such
decisions with one occurring in the last four
years will generally be considered to
constitute a pattern.”
Rick wanted to establish case law
lolololololololol
Think you did that already with airfrancesucks.com and a few others
You are already a three time loser at the udrp
Jealous now that you are forbidden from getting a new tld
Wait, four years will come and go and you can start over
Your cybersquatting convictions will be all but forgotten
For the purposes of the new tlds
Of course history will remember the losses
Those are as you say case law
Precidents
Rick I am really relieved that you have altered the page at drlaurasucks to refocus on these guys from brazil
I was tired of my patients telling me about the links to porn you sponsored on the site for the last number of years. Looks like you may have avoided another embarrassing loss by changing the page.
Although the airfrance sucks decision wasn’t enough to make you change your ways the threat from brazil seemingly was
Fortunately for you each case is decided on its merits. If they looked at the history of registrations you would have problems.
Anyways glad you have a new horse to whip
Air France DOES suck so they can try and hide that, but good luck.
3 losses? Oh really?? Nice try!
Off the top of my head Rick lost airfrancesucks.com a tm name he had pointed to ppc (guess he was to busy to gripe)
Then there was racingforum.com (we know man you were jobbed)
then there was what many believe was his most outrageous loss
his REVERSE DOMAIN NAME HIJACKING attempt regarding Slavic’s voyuer.
The last is really bad because:
A it is generic
B he knew the owner well, and he was a member of Ricks private board lol
C Rick is always preaching about these OVER REACHING MORONS that he wants to EXPOSE wehn in fact he is one of them and
D Despite all his talk about tms and stuff he obvioulsy donn’t know jack about the law
Haven’t checked deeper but there’s 3 strikes right there Rick.
Rick is not the enemy here certainly his rights to the domain he registered 15 years before the .Br guys came up with their site should be a no-brainer winner for Rick and its a shame he has to spend $5K to defend such a frivolous UDRP.
The enemy is the system that allows such a silly complaint and forces the domain holder to defend.
My point is that the only thing to stop it is UDRP reform and the only one fighting for it is the ICA
“Actually, the final Applicant Guidebook places the same restrictions on serial reverse domain name hijackers as it does on serial cybersquatters — ICA fought for that and got it included.”
Except the language defines an empty set.
RDNH is primarily lawyer-driven, and not client-driven. There are some lawyers who market UDRP complaints, and really don’t care how well thought-out they are. I know of one law firm which was admonished once, and hit with RDNH the second time they were caught being dishonest in a UDRP proceeding, but there are no organizations of which I’m aware which have gotten an RDNH ruling more than once. I’m willing to be corrected on that point.
While symbolically important and satisfying, as there are always those who need to be reminded that UDRP complainants are not all angels, this Guidebook provision on RDNH has no discernible practical impact.
There is no UDRP reform which will eliminate the incidence of misguided or frivolous filings. As any lawyer knows, client inquiries often begin with “Can I get sued if…” The answer to that question is always yes. For $350, some ink, and some paper, anybody can file anything against anyone in a federal court. While I’m surprised that as many UDRP’s are filed, as opposed to ACPA lawsuits, the UDRP is attractive to TM complainants because of its procedural simplicity and relative speed. Most of the folks apart from large portfolio owners that I defend in UDRP’s wouldn’t stand a chance against a lawsuit filed in a remote jurisdiction, because they simply wouldn’t be able to show up. Apart from that cost and inconvenience angle, the UDRP complainant has to make a significant jurisdictional admission, which matters if one has chosen one’s registrar wisely.
There is no decision making system run by humans which is going to arrive at the right answer every time. However, my off-the-cuff guess about this particular filing is that the defense will likely be successful, as are the majority of respondent-requested three-member panel cases. The domain name registrant prevails in 65% of those cases – nearly two thirds.
Procedurally, the UDRP has problems which can and should be addressed. But one of the phantom issues that comes up from time to time is this idea that if ICANN had contracts with UDRP providers then, for some unexplained reason, things would be better. This is pure voodoo.
Folks, ICANN has contracts with registrars. Is everything peachy with them? How about the registries?
The answer is that UDRP providers would be contractually bound to honor the UDRP to the letter. That doesn’t mean “getting decisions right”, but it could lead to some adverse consequences. And for that, I’ll provide two examples.
The UDRP requires the Respondent to make payment by the 20 day deadline if they are selecting a three-member panel. Now, both WIPO and NAF have online payment facilities, but the way this used to have to be done was to send them a credit authorization with the response to charge the fee. One fine night, our friend Ari Goldberger had two pages stick together in his fax machine, and the credit authorization for the panel didn’t go through. The NAF, rigidly applying the rules, was going to deny his request for that panel. After much argument, the NAF accepted the payment anyway, and gave him the panel he requested. Under a “you must contractually follow this to the letter” regime, the regular give-and-take for the sake of procedural fairness in unusual circumstances would be a tougher sell.
To use another example, as anyone who does these things knows, the UDRP Rules require a decision in 14 days. That can be really tough in a three-member panel proceeding, because you have three experts with non-empty schedules who have to read the stuff, confer, and draft a decision. Some panels include members from the US, EU and Australia, so I would imagine that just finding time to chat about the case is no small problem for them.
Now, when a complainant has belched forth 15 pages of argument backed by 100 pages of exhibits, and I do the same thing in response, do I want them skimming over it and banging out a hasty opinion in 14 days? Hell no, and neither does any right thinking UDRP respondent. Now, sometimes panels grant themselves pro forma extensions, and sometimes they don’t. But as an attorney who puts a lot of effort into breaking panelists out of the run-of-the-mill cybersquatting case mindset, I want them to take whatever time they need to think about it, talk it over, and catch whatever nuances they need to understand the case. Again, under the “contractual compliance with the UDRP” approach, what we’ll get is more crappy decisions written in haste, and not some improvement in quality.
It’s a lot like the “domain names are property” shibboleth. You want to pay sales tax on that property? Property tax as applied in your jurisdiction or the registrar’s jurisdiction? You want them subject to divorce and bankruptcy proceedings? You want abandoned domain names to escheat to your friendly neighborhood state escheat office? If it is just another way to get to “these are valuable assets of some kind, and should be treated as such” that’s one thing. But a binary classification of property/not-property for all intents and purposes is just simplemindedness which falls into the bumper sticker rule – If your policy position fits on a bumper sticker, it’s wrong.
“The enemy is the system that allows such a silly complaint and forces the domain holder to defend.”
And what would stop a silly complaint from being filed?
At this point, someone always throws out some sort of monetary sanction, although the UDRP providers would have no way of collecting any sort of penalty. The other side’s answer to this is to say, “Okay, let’s make it fair and impose a monetary sanction whenever cybersquatting is found”. Fair is fair, and if you are going to argue anything intelligently, you have to understand where the other side is coming from. They find it pretty silly to have a situation in which someone can register a silly trademark typo for a couple of bucks, and the complainant has to pay $1500 to deal with that. Whose idea of fair is that?
There were guys like Zuccarini who registered trademark typos out the wazoo and made a lot of money off of them, while the trademark owners had to jump through the UDRP hoops to pile up decisions against him. Losing a domain name in a UDRP is no skin off of the back of someone like that. So, if you are going to go to some sort of “bond payment” by a UDRP complainant as a hedge against frivolous complaints, what’s the payoff on the other side of the table?
“My point is that the only thing to stop it is UDRP reform and the only one fighting for it is the ICA”
ICANN doesn’t really work on the principle of lone voices shouting “I want things done my way”. There are a number of people in the ICANN community, particularly in the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group who have been significant forces against the “trademarks uber alles” crowd since the beginning of ICANN. Once in a while, coalition building and common sense do actually win, but “fighting” rarely does. This “only one fighting” stuff is a real kick in the pants to the many others who share the same general concerns, and have been volunteering their efforts for more than a decade.
Someone mentioned the “adverse, final” language in the Guidebook relative to the three strikes rule. That got there by way of a “helpful suggestion” to the Guidebook drafting staff and ICANN counsel. To answer the question above about whether it embraces court proceedings filed after a UDRP decision – of course it does. Paragraph 4(k) of the UDRP specifically calls for setting aside a UDRP decision in the event a lawsuit is filed, and is thus unquestionably part and parcel of the UDRP. So, yes, by its own terms, the UDRP includes procedures to be followed in the event of such a suit, and thus such proceedings are not in any sense “outside” of the UDRP. As Jon Hodgman would say, “You’re welcome.”
“The enemy is the system that allows such a silly complaint and forces the domain holder to defend.”
Imagine a domain name system that makes it impossible to take a domain down or away, before it expires.
If something is not possible, people may not be interested in paying lawyers to try to do the impossible.
Why was a system like UDRP created ? Who created it ? Who has profited from UDRP ?
Imagine a domain name system that makes it impossible to take a domain down or away, before it expires. Such a system exists. Why doesn’t ICANN have any
interest in such a system ? Does it lack the knobs and levers ICANN wants ?
Once educated, people may prefer a domain name system not based on artificial scarcity and silly battles over “strings”. Time will tell.
“Why was a system like UDRP created?”
The UDRP was created principally as a mechanism for avoiding having the registrars and registries run out of business by lawsuits triggered by the behavior of a minority of registrants.
Back in 1998, there were two alternatives:
1. Follow NSI’s rough-cut dispute policy, which was utterly mechanical, predictable, and awful; or
2. Sue NSI.
That system wasn’t going to scale, and wasn’t going to work with multiple registrars.
Now, I certainly get where a lot of the commentary on how f–d up the entire artificial constructs of registrars, registries, and networks of contracts holding it all together like duct tape is – after all, I was the guy who filed the corporate paperwork for the Open Root Server Confederation. The bottom line is that ISP’s use the IANA root, and one can whistle into the prevailing wind as long as your breath lasts.
One of the things ICANN was required to do in the initial contract with the DoC was to develop a trademark/domain dispute resolution policy. WIPO developed a first draft, and that draft was further amended by ICANN to the final form at the Santiago meeting. WIPO likes to claim that it was the sole author, but that’s not entirely accurate. There were a lot of good civil society folks who had significant input into the final draft.
As far as “who has profited” from the UDRP, there are some NAF panelists who have gotten a disproportionate number of cases, and have done pretty well. As far as WIPO goes, I find it hard to believe the UDRP is a net money maker for them, given their unbelievable overhead. For most of the panelists, their billing rates far exceed the return from doing UDRP decisions, and most of them do it because it is interesting and they believe they are helping the system to function.
I’ve gone through these numbers before, but with something on the order of 2000 cases a year, the gross revenue to WIPO would be roughly $3M. Of that, $2M is distributed in panelist fees, so WIPO ends up with $1M. Their UDRP program employs a layer of professional staff, any one of whom would be making over $300K per year in private practice, and a small army of case managers.
Now, by way of comparison, WIPO administers filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. In 2011, there were 181,900 international patent applications filed under the PCT. The base fee is $1,453 (that varies, because it is charged in Swiss Francs). WIPO also manages certain treaty-based trademark filings.
Do the math. The biennial budget for WIPO 2012/3 projects an income of SFr 647M. There is no breakout specifically for the UDRP, but assuming that figure is rolled into the total arbitration program budget, then income from all of their arbitration activities amounts to SFr 2.7M of projected income. In other words, in the larger picture of WIPO’s activities, they would do better to look for change in the sofa cushions than to even administer UDRP proceedings.
NAF, of course, doesn’t publish a budget. In fact, if you want a real challenge, try to get to the bottom of the question, “Who owns NAF?”
Normally, this is the point of the discussion where someone says, “Yeah, but Berryhill makes a living doing them.” Yes, folks, I have become fabulously wealthy doing roughly 3 or 4 a month at a net of typically under 3K, while employing a full time legal assistant with more than 10 years experience. Go find out what IP attorneys with 20 years of experience in patent prosecution really make, and figure out what the difference is between someone who wanted to climb the law firm ladder and someone who would rather do something interesting and fun.
When someone finds this vast cave of Aladdin’s riches is hiding under the UDRP, would you please do me the favor of finding a map to it? Because this tinfoil hat conspiracy crap is as tedious as it is unfair, inaccurate, and exemplifies why domainers are ineffective as a group in cooperatively advancing their own interests in the ICANN policy arena.
“When someone finds this vast cave of Aladdin’s riches is hiding under the UDRP, would you please do me the favor of finding a map to it?”
=============
Yes, do the math…
ISOC (IETF) grosses $34,000,000 per year with how many $600,000 per year employees or contractors ?
ICANN grosses ?? $100,000,000 ?? per year with how many $500,000 per year employees or contractors ?
Each RIR grosses ???$$$??? per year with how many $600,000 per year employees or contractos ? [and their $50,000,000 cash reserves]
“The bottom line is that ISP’s use the IANA root…”
The bottom line is that telcos will use the FCC.IANA.NTIA root
If anyone is interested I have set up a service where you pay $20 and you get a banner at the top of your website, like the copyscape one, that says “This website is protected by John Berryhill – Do not reverse domain hijack”.
I am not paying him a dime so I have set this up at johnberryhill.xxx
Now because I am not paying him if anyone files a UDRP you dont get any protection or legal representation, however Robert Cline has agreed to inundate the message boards of any company filling with news of .Co domains, a fate worse than death for these companies you’ll agree.
http : //www. circleid. com/posts/20120313_icann_appointsrasmussen_to_security_stability_advisory_committee/
Updated March 12, 2012
COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY, RELIABILITY & INTEROPERABILITY
COUNCIL MEMBERS
Jeffery Goldthorp, Designated Federal Officer
Lauren Kravetz, Deputy Designated Federal Officer
Chair:
Glen F. Post III, CenturyLink
Members:
Dr. Edward Amoroso, AT&T
Robert Azzi, Sprint Nextel Corp.
Donna Bethea-Murphy, Iridium Satellite LLC
Bill Buchholtz, Texas 9-1-1 Alliance
Uma Chandrashekhar, Telecommunications Industry Association
Lynn Claudy, National Association of Broadcasters
Doug Davis, Hypercube Telecom, LLC
Timothy Defoggi, Indian Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Jack Doane, National Association of State Chief Information Officers
Donna F. Dodson, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Craig Donaldson, Intrado
Brian K. Done, Office of Cybersecurity and Communications, U.S. Department
of Homeland Security
Dr. Stuart Elby, Verizon Communications
Andy Ellis, Akamai Technologies
Chris Fischer, North East King County (WA) Regional Public Safety
Communication Agency
Laurie Flaherty, National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, U.S
Department of Transportation
Dr. Brian Fontes, National Emergency Number Association
James Fowler, NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications
Barry Lee Greene, Internet Systems Consortium
Brenton Greene, Telcordia Technologies
Hon. Maureen Harris, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
Jennifer Hightower, Cox Communications
Christian Hillabrant, T-Mobile USA
Christopher Homer, DIRECTV
Brett E. Jenkins, ION Media Networks
Rodney Joffe, NeuStar, Inc.
Brett Kilbourne, Utilities Telecommunications Council
Elisa Kim, E911 Institute
Stephen Malphrus, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
Danny McPherson, Verisign
Susan Miller, Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions
Brian Oliger, WTOP Radio, Washington, DC
Michael O’Reirdan, Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group
Wayne Pacine, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
Alan Paller, The SANS Institute
Updated March 12, 2012
Damon Penn, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department
of Homeland Security
Jacqueline Randall, State of Washington E911 Program Office
Rod Rasmussen, Internet Identity
José Luis Rodriguez, Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network
Robert Ross, CBS Broadcasting Inc.
William Sagel, Major County Sheriffs Association
Stephen Schmidt, Amazon.com
Richard Shockey, SIP Forum
Bill Smith, PayPal
Dr. Dorothy A. Spears-Dean, Virginia Information Technologies Agency
Craig Spiezle, Online Trust Alliance
Maurice Tosé, TeleCommunication Systems, Inc.
Daniel A. Traynor, Tennessee Valley Authority
Dr. Christian Vogler, Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center
on Telecommunications Access
John P. Wick, Jr., Syniverse Technologies
Steven Wisely, APCO International
Karen Wong, California Technology Agency
Life is not about winning –
Life is about mitigating your loses – that means an occasional $5K UDRP Response – in this case Rick is spending $5K to respond to a frustrated bully.
I don’t make the rules (i.e. .com being the only one on the shelf) – I just play by the rules.
ICANN has their own section at the US Federal Trade .COMmission
FTC Warns That Rapid Expansion of Internet Domain Name System Could Leave Consumers More Vulnerable to Online Fraud
Letter Urges ICANN to Implement Pilot Program, Take New Steps to Protect Consumers
The Federal Trade Commission today sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that oversees Internet domain names, expressing concern that the organization’s plan to dramatically expand the domain name system could leave consumers more vulnerable to online fraud and undermine law enforcers’ ability to track down online scammers.
@ Berryhill “Okay, let’s make it fair and impose a monetary sanction whenever cybersquatting is found”. Fair is fair, and if you are going to argue anything intelligently, you have to understand where the other side is coming from. They find it pretty silly to have a situation in which someone can register a silly trademark typo for a couple of bucks, and the complainant has to pay $1500 to deal with that. Whose idea of fair is that?
Finally, a voice of reason. Its not all about those big bad over reaching tm holders. As John says fair is fair.
Hey John, quick and dirty TM question…
Lets say that there’s a magazine called “Airplane Pilot”.
Their United States TM asserts rights over the generic words “Airplane Pilot” in all forms of digital print media.
Say someone comes along who wants to exclusively service the market for experimental airplane pilots. He acquires “ExperimentalAirplanePilot.com”.
Is “ExperimentalAirplanePilot.com” vulnerable on the basis of a well written “Airplane Pilot” trademark?
Verisign Moves to Reston.VA
…
…closer to the NTIA ? and FCC ? and NIST ? and the ISOC (IETF) ?
COM…1aY COM…2bZ
http: //blogs. verisigninc. com/blog/entry/verisign_labs_distinguished_speaker_series
@Anon – magazine title marks are practically their own subcategory of UDRP disputes, which are off topic to this thread.
“The bottom line is that ISP’s use the IANA root…”
And customers use their ISP’s resolvers.
But only because they don’t know any other way… except maybe Google Public DNS or OpenDNS. More spying and more ads if you opt for those alternatives.
But isn’t this a pretty weak long-term foundation for the trademark dispute game ICANN inherited from NSI and is *still* playing after all these years? How long can this continue?
ISP’s can switch. And so can customers. They can choose both the roots and the resolvers they want to use. Indeed they can even run their own.
Eventually people may wake up and realise much of the dispute activity is unnecessary. It’s an uneeded expense. It’s only continued ignorance of some very basic technology that keeps this game going.
Fighting over vanity phone numbers when the plain old numbers work just fine.
A vanity phone number is not a brand. It’s an address.
The USPTO is not going to grant a TM for an address. And that’s how most domain names are used. As addresses. Naturally.
Some might want the domain name to morph into some sort of new class of IP. But there’s very little to suggest it ever will. And look at how easily a domain name holder’s rights (if any) can be more or less ignored.
Domain names are addresses (think speed dial entries). If we peel back the layers, that’s what we find. There is no magic. Just an address. That a great many people cannot type correctly (= the *real* problem).
Let us pray the layers don’t get peeled back. Because a lot of alleged “value” in favour of domainers could go up in smoke.
On the positive side, a lot of time and money might be saved. Not just that of WIPO or domainer attorneys, but also of companies and other organisations continually faced with the “problem” of domain names.
The UDRP process is a mess and may well be biased against
‘domainers’, and that’s unfair, but who’s to say the owner of
SaveMe.com.br didn’t offer Schwartz a very good price for
his domain and this has turned in to a legal challenge for him
now because of his (infamous) greed?
After all, I hope most would agree that SaveMe.com is a $500
name, on the best of days, and it’s not like he was doing anything
with the name…
Not everyone wants to try and rip a buyer, squeezing them for
every penny they’ve ever earned, and the ‘cry baby’ attitude that
Schwartz shows on his blog does very little to portray ‘domaining’
in a favourable light… contrary to what his wild ‘bleetings’ suggest.
Messages of support, for SaveMe.com.br, can be sent here:
http://www.saveme.com.br/fale-conosco
Cheers,
In light of Rick’s overnite communication (2012-04-07) to many of us, it now appears as if this is:
an admission that there are no laws in Brazil and BRazil is a country ruin by dictatros and thugs.
all press is good press even if negative as in this claim -cheap advertising and marketing for saveme.co.br at the expense of exploiting UDRP – which clearly the Complainant has no respect for
What’s up, its good article concerning media print, we all be familiar with media is a enormous source of data.