Fwd: [At-Large] Strange Bedfellows

[Robin Gross]

NCUC's current statement on the Domain Name Tasting issue is here:
   http://ipjustice.org/wp/2007/12/07/ncuc-statement-on-domain-name-
tasting/

AND the GNSO's initial report (7 Jan) has been posted for public
comment at:
   http://gnso.icann.org/issues/domain-tasting/gnso-initial-report-
domain-tasting-07jan08.pdf

The comment period will be from 8 January 2008 to 28 January 2008.

Comments may be submitted by email to: <domain-
tasting-2008 at icann.org> and may be viewed at http://forum.icann.org/
lists/domain-tasting-2008/.

Thanks,
Robin


On Jan 8, 2008, at 2:18 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

> Was Evan at the ALAC-NCUC meeting where we discussed this at some
> length? Has he read our complete comments? (Can't blame him if the
> answer is no, because there are so many rounds of comments at
> different
> times and in different places that it would be easy to miss. Robin,
> can
> you dig them up?)
>
> First, I would recommend informing him that someone who disagrees with
> his particular position is not necessarily unconcerned about the
> public
> interest. Indeed, one reason we were unwilling to jump on the anti-AGP
> bandwagon was precisely that we saw only a few special interests
> for it
> and not a big public interest rationale. On the whole, the issue
> affects
> noncommercial registrants and the general public hardly at all.
>
> Further, his grasp of the political and economic interests seems a bit
> shaky. In our experience, it has been the registries (aside from
> VeriSign) and in particular Afilias-associated registries who were
> screaming most loudly about AGP. Some registries have complained about
> the cost of handling all the traffic associated with short-term
> registrations. This is a valid argument, but it was quickly and
> adequately addressed by imposing fees (as PIR did). If the registries
> have stopped supporting elimination of AGP, it is probably because the
> imposition of "re-stocking fees" addresses the infrastructure burden
> problem more than adequately.
>
> He should not be surprised about the Business constituency position,
> because they are all about regulating the domain name market as
> strongly
> as possible to protect trademarks. Many businesses see domainers as
> contributing to typosquatting. So they are more than happy to
> eliminate
> business opportunities for small speculators, regardless of whether
> there are other ways to eliminate typosquatting (there are), just as
> they would be more than happy to eliminate all new TLDs in order to
> protect trademarks.
>
> The "possible" benefit of ADP to registrants is the one that
> originally
> motivated creating it: providing a cost-free way to correct mistakes.
>
> Our take on this issue is that the attack on AGP is basically an
> attack
> on domainers; i.e., on making a business out of pay per click based on
> popular domain names. We don't view domaining per se as a problem. As
> I've said (and this may be not shared by some on the list) we are the
> non-commercial constituency not the "anti-commercial" constituency. If
> the problems of typosquatting are addressed by litigation (and they
> have
> been) and the problems of registry infrastructure burden are addressed
> by the fees, we just don't see the point of eliminating AGP
> altogether,
> what does it accomplish that serves the public interest?




IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org



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