The following is a satirical response to news that SportAccord won a community objection against the .sport top level domain name.
An International Chamber of Commerce panelist has upheld a community objection brought by BreatheAccord against dotBreathe LLC’s top level domain name application for .breathe.
The decision by panelist Aru Kiddinme means that BreatheAccord, the only other applicant for .breathe, will now have a clear path to delegation for the domain name.
Panelist Kiddinme first determined that the breathe community is clearly delineated.
“It is clear to me that the community is easily defined,” he wrote. “The formal boundaries of the community are defined by only those human beings who have ever breathed a breath on the planet Earth.”
BreatheAccord argued that, through the various associations that are in its membership, it represents the approximately 7 billion living creatures who have ever breathed.
Kiddinme agreed that “although the objector might not represent all people who have ever breathed, it acts for a preponderant part of such community of human beings.”
“In fact, it would be almost impossible for an institution to represent any community as a whole,” Kiddinme wrote. “If such was the requirement, there would be no reason to provide for the possibility of community objections.”
BreatheAccord had collected 12,982 e-signatures on Change.org from people in the breathing community who were opposed to dotBreathe, LLC getting the .breathe domain name.
dotBreathe, LLC argued that the “expressions of opposition from the Objector are small compared to the large composition of the alleged community of breathers of seven billion people”.
But the panelist agreed with BreatheAccord that the signatures, along with letters of objection by four oxygen companies, represented substantial opposition to the TLD application.
Kiddinme also determined that BreatheAccord was clearly targeting the community members with its TLD. dotBreathe, LLC responded that it believes domain names should be open for all to register and not limited to certain segments of the breathing community.
On the issue of likelihood of material detriment to the community, BreatheAccord calculated the damages at $1,000 per community member, or approximately 7 trillion dollars.
Panelist Kiddinme determined that, while BreatheAccord’s 7 trillion estimate might be a tad high, “it will certainly lead to trillions in economic damage and prevent the people who breathe from functioning in the way intended.”
Kiddinme said .breathe being allocated to the applicant is likely to lead to war, disease, and famine. And cybersquatting.
Kiddinme added:
Under the United States Department of Commerce’s agreement with ICANN, the Affirmation of Commitments, ICANN must demonstrate that the new gTLD program contributes, in part, to consumer trust. Delegating “.breathe” to an unaccountable registry operator, which lends a false sense of official sanction to the .breathe domain name space, would inevitably erode consumer trust by misleading individuals through unofficial content.
The panelist was apparently also swayed by two GAC members posing questions about the domain name.
Andrew, this is brilliant. I think you should start an offshoot site called DNWTF which specializes entirely in satirical criticism. It seems there would be no shortage of potential targets.
Fake Steve Jobs would definitely approve. Bravo!