[governance] FW: <nettime> Company claims ownership of 482 new gTLDs

[Riaz K Tayob]

This is interesting. The first come first serve implicit rule of IPRs 
was done away with by conflating trademarks with domain names and 
creating the notion of cyber-squating... this is the wild west of terra 
nullius... anything can happen, but most likely 'might is right'... 
signing away rights to ICANN to apply?

On 2012/03/23 12:43 AM, michael gurstein wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nettime-l-bounces at mail.kein.org
> [mailto:nettime-l-bounces at mail.kein.org] On Behalf Of
> nettime's_roving_reporter
> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 4:59 PM
> To: nettime-l at kein.org
> Subject: [SPAM]<nettime>  Company claims ownership of 482 new gTLDs
>
>
> http://domainincite.com/company-claims-ownership-of-482-new-gtlds/
>
> Company claims ownership of 482 new gTLDs
>
>     Kevin Murphy, March 22, 2012, 15:51:26 (UTC), Domain Registries
>
>     A small New York company has warned new gTLD applicants that it owns
>     482 top-level domain strings and that ICANN has "no authority" to award
>     them to anybody else.
>
>     Name.Space claims it has ownership rights to potentially valuable
>     gTLDs including several likely to be applied for by others, such as
>     .shop, .nyc, .sex, .hotel and .green.
>
>     It's been operating hundreds of "gTLDs" in a lightly-used alternate DNS
>     root system since 1996.
>
>     Now the company has filed for trademark protection for several of these
>     strings and has said that it will apply for several through the ICANN
>     new gTLD program.
>
>     But Name.Space, which says it has just "tens of thousands" of domain
>     registrations in its alternate root, is also claiming that it already
>     owns all 482 strings in the ICANN root too.
>
>     "What we did is put them on notice that they cannot give any of these
>     482 names to anyone else," CEO Alex Mashinsky told DomainIncite. "These
>     names predate ICANN. They don't have authority under US law to issue
>     these gTLDs to third parties."
>
>     "We're putting out there the 482 names to make sure other people don't
>     risk their money applying for things ICANN cannot legally give them,"
>     he added.
>
>     [DEL: I could not find a comprehensive list of all 482 strings, but
>     Name.Space publishes a subset here. :DEL] Read the company's full
>     list here (pdf).<https://namespace.us/CompleteTLDList.pdf>
>
>     It's a slightly ridiculous position. Anyone can set up an alternative
>     DNS root, fill it with dictionary words and start selling names - the
>     question is whether anyone actually uses it.
>
>     However, putting that aside, Name.Space may have a legitimate quarrel
>     with ICANN anyway.
>
>     It applied for a whopping 118 gTLDs in ICANN's initial "test-bed" round
>     in 2000, which produced the likes of .biz, .info, .name and .museum.
>
>     While ICANN did not select any of Name.Space's proposed names for
>     delegation, it did not "reject" its application outright either.
>
>     This is going to cause problems. Name.Space is not the only
>     unsuccessful 2000 applicant that remains pissed off 12 years later that
>     ICANN has not closed the book on its application.
>
>     Image Online Design, an alternate root provider and 2000 applicant, has
>     a claim to .web that is likely to emerge as an issue for other
>     applicants after the May 2 reveal date.
>
>     These unsuccessful candidates are unhappy that they've been repeatedly
>     told that their old applications were not rejected, and with the
>     privileges ICANN has given them in the current Applicant Guidebook.
>
>     ICANN will give any unsuccessful bidder from the 2000 round an $86,000
>     discount on its application fees, provided they apply for the same
>     string they applied for the first time.
>
>     However, like any other applicant this time around, they also have to
>     sign away their rights to sue.
>
>     And the $86,000 discount is only redeemable against one gTLD
>     application, not 118.
>
>     "We applied for 118 and we would like to get the whole 118," said
>     Mashinsky.
>
>     ICANN is not going to give Name.Space what it wants, of course, so it's
>     not clear how this is going to play out.
>
>     The company could file Legal Rights Objections against applications for
>     strings it thinks it owns, or it could take matters further.
>
>     While the company is not yet making legal threats, any applicants for
>     gTLDs on Name.Space's list should be aware that they do have an
>     additional risk factor to take into account.
>
>     "We hope we can resolve all of this amicably," said Mashinsky. "We're
>     not trying to throw a monkey wrench into the process."
>
>
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>

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