Fwd: "Domain Protection Racket" Promotion on Network Solutions Home Page

[Nicolas Adam]

You'll notice the "Protect Your Brand", in the center. It's not as big
as the criticism below make it to be but it's there.

Would it be relevant and/or feasible to 'regulate' (read
encourage/constrain ==> through types of means that i will leave open to
discussion) the way registrar can market those new TLD?

First, it doesn't look good.

Second, while i don't think anybody (except perhaps established
registrars) who are in favor of gTLD expansion have a clear view of what
the emergent system of naming and names will or should be, i am pretty
sure no-one so disposed would care to advocate that this system should
establish itself mainly as a protection scheme.

Is forcing advertising to depart with the protection rhetoric a step
forward? Is it feasible?

Just some thoughts.

Nicolas

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[ NNSquad ] "Domain Protection Racket" Promotion on Network
Solutions Home Page
Date: 	Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:42:23 -0700
From: 	Lauren Weinstein <lauren at vortex.com>
To: 	nnsquad at nnsquad.org



"Domain Protection Racket" Promotion on Network Solutions Home Page

This "in your face" promotion currently running on the Network
Solutions home page clearly illustrates how the current top-level
domains (gTLD) expansion plan is akin to a traditional "Sign up now or
something bad might, uh, happen to you, buddy!" protection racket.

http://j.mp/ofrzyv   (Lauren's Blog - Screen capture from networksolutions.com)

As you can see, there is no concept of community service, social
responsibility, or even real "value-added" benefits.  The promotion
for two TLDs is explicitly about *protection* -- as in protecting
yourself from someone else grabbing those domains and making you look
bad, confusing your customers, and worse -- whether you have any real
interest in those TLDs or not.

And this is *only the beginning*, my friends.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren at vortex.com):http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility:http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
  - Network Neutrality Squad:http://www.nnsquad.org
  - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance:http://www.gctip.org
  - PRIVACY Forum:http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog:http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+:http://vortex.com/g+lauren
Twitter:https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com



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