Trademark Group Hijacks New TLD Comments
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
INTA asks members to submit comments in opposition to Expressions of Interest for new TLDs.
Last month ICANN opened up a comment period on its Draft Expressions of Interest/Pre-Registrations Model (EOI), which I’ve written about before.
I checked in today hoping to see some constructive comments on the EOI draft, such as costs and procedures. Instead, I was greeted with short, terse comments such as:
“I do not support ICANN’s acceptance of pre-registrations for new gTLDs.”
Wow, comments like that are really going to help ICANN resolve this!
About a dozen comments basically say that ICANN shouldn’t go forward with new TLDs, at least yet before resolving trademark concerns, and thus pre-registrations are premature. The comments are from big names, too: Lockheed Martin, H.J. Heinz, etc.
It was rather suspicious that these groups suddenly chimed in, until I saw this comment:
“As an INTA member I have been encouraged to give my opinion on the pre-registration issue”.
Aha. INTA stands for International Trademark Association. As it turns out, INTA sent an email to its members asking them to post a comment during the comment period.
Now, I have no problem with people posting comments. That’s the point of a comment period. But it would be nice if the people commenting actually understood the issue and what was being asked, rather than saying merely “I oppose”. It’s kind of like when an advocacy group asks its members to sign a form letter to a politician. The politician puts less weight on form letters than unique, well-reasoned letters.
Further Reading:
INTA special interests again at work trying to undermine the domain industry so they can have all the domains they want for nothing, or very little.
INTA should steal Burger King’s motto, “Have it your way!”, and pitch that motto to trademark holders b/c that is what they are saying essentially. Plus, “Give us some big money since you don’t know what you are doing”.
To be fair, the INTA email didn’t suggest any particular language for the comments, and contained background and a link to ICANN’s announcement and FAQ regarding gTLDs. It wasn’t a “form letter” campaign. So if the submitted comments were uninformed and/or uninspired, blame the commenter, not INTA itself.
@Matt Saunders
Actually, what the INTA letter said was:
“it is important that ICANN also hear from trademark owners directly. Your
comment can be as brief as stating whether you do or do not support ICANN
accepting pre-registrations for new gTLDs.”
That sounds to me as if they are soliciting one-liners…
I put my own pointed comment up about this.
Antony Van Couvering said, “They are to reasoned comments as deep-fried twinkies are to a healthy dinner” – that’s funny!
IMHO, opponents of new TLD’s generally should welcome the proposed EOI process, since it will provide more grist for the mill of “look at all of these awful new TLD’s they are proposing”.
My own view is that when the new TLDs are announced all the doom-prophecizing will seem much ado about nothing. But maybe John knows about some awful new TLDs that I’m not aware of.
It is quite unacceptable that members and lawyers from the International Trade Association give no reason why they think new TLDs will hurt their brands.
Defensive registrations? Does Heinz ketchup thinks that it is worth registering http://www.heinz.music for their brand? How about http://www.heinz.basketball and http://www.heinz.horse ?
Why are these corporate know-it-alls answer these questions? Will they register these and will people confuse these TLDs with their ketchup?
Amazing. I would love to know if the legal counsel of Heinz, Sabrina J. Hudson would do defensive registration of these names. How about http://www.heinz.hotel ?
Funny. ICANN needs to wake up and start making some decisions about the whole trademark issue. Enough making up overarching issues. ICANN executives need to stop trying to avoid conflict and earn their salaries. This means using your common sense and stop wasting my time and others with taking into consideration absolute garbage comments that the International Trademark Association throws out.
Does this represent the opinion of all Trademark holders and members of INTA.org. That is a resounding now. Be careful what you wish for. I am glad that these trademark “representatives” are making a fool of themselves. ICANN will see right through them. They can’t be that clueless.
Constantine Roussos
.music
http://www.music.us
http://www.myspace.com/musicextension
http://www.twitter.com/musicextension
Does Heinz, or any of these other companies bitching and moaning about new TLDs, register their names and every other random iteration and misspelling of their names in every one of the 252 existing ccTLDs? If not, then why would they feel the need to do so in the new gTLDs?
Heinz is not registered in the vast majority of the TLDs from the link below. OMG, the potential for cybersquatting and fraud!!!
http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/
Though to Heinz’s credit, if some unscrupulous ketchup vendor were able to secure, for example, “heinz.hotel” and persuade the online ketchup-purchasing public to purchase inferior, off-brand ketchup from such a website, the damages to the Heinz brand would no doubt be incalculable.
“INTA stands for International Trademark Association”
More precisely, HTTP://INTA
People seem to be missing the movement to a
new set of VERBS. HTTP is worn out. TLDs are
no longer of much interest and are being
phased out.
At the meetings in Vegas, people may become
more current on the “Domain Industry”.
Also, follow the money, millions are being
spent to try to control the Verb Space.
That passed under the radar of most IGF people in 2009.
“But maybe John knows about some awful new TLDs that I’m not aware of.”
Pehaps I was not clear. There are within the ICANN community what I would call “controversy generation engines”.
It does not matter which TLD’s are sought by whom, it is certain that the TLD’s and their applicants will be deemed dreadful, and that the EOI results will be used to gin up new reasons for delay.
Did anyone see an ICANN discussion on this?
https://lists.dns-oarc.net/pipermail/dns-operations/2010-January/004838.html
@Berryhill – Controversy generation engines within the ICANN community? Or voices of opposition with relevant points to make?
You are looking at this far too insularly, thre is a big world beyond ICANN politics!
It is INTA’s job to bring important trademark issues to the attention of their members. They would have been failing in their remit if they did not point out that this consultation was taking place. Note that their email did not suggest what the response should be, it even states that members could repond in favour of the reccomendation if they like!
It should be clear that the IANA “insiders”
are now fully funded and will have very little
motivation to allow anyone else into their
small circle of friends.
The parallels to the “Banking Industry” are
interesting. They also do not allow anyone
into their club where they have a license to
print money, or credit each other’s accounts
from thin air.
There are also parallels to major league
sports. They are not going to create too
many “Franchises”.
Speaking of Franchises, it is interesting
that ICANN was allowed to create such
structures without any FTC or California
compliance. That is one of many examples of
how the legal system was selectively used.
As people write history books about the
ICANN & IANA “experiment” they should be
able to point out this is one of the only
examples in modern times where an artificial
system evolved from thin air, leveraged
thin air, and continues to float on thin
air.
Many other eco-systems have so much
history people get tangled trying to unravel
them. With the ICANN IANA story, almost
100% of the history is known & can be
learned by students in a few semesters.
Fortunately, it is a system that is not
needed and which will likely be most useful
as a model of how NOT to do things.
Recent comment from INTA member:
“I DO NOT SUPPORT THE ACCEPTANCE OF PRE-REGISTRATIONS BY ICANN FOR THE
NEW gTLD’s”
Way to advance the discussion, guys.
Another “industry” with similar Artificial Scarcity characteristics is the CASINO business.
Incumbents will pull groups from under any corner when the suggestion is made to increase competition.
It is ironic that Church leaders will be used
to rage against the evils of gambling and
those same ministers are then wined and
dined in the special clubs owned by the
CASINOS.
The incumbents milk their cash cows and
the general public gets the impression
there is wide-spread opposition to
expansion.
Trademark groups are only only vocal
minority used as a tool by the incumbents
to continue their Artificial Scarcity
IANA game.
One way to avoid it all is literally to
route around the entire charade. As that
happens trademark owners may find they
are faced with a very expensive entry fee
to the new platform(s).
The IANA “Dead Heads” of course don’t care
they are on a life-long mission to follow
the road show. They are paid very well to
do very little. Fools continue to follow
them around the world.
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