The 2012 round was an exercise in greed and opportunism. Brands were shaken down to have redundant domains lest their trademarks get abused in the new gTLDs. New takedown measures had to be deployed by ICANN for generics, yet ccTLDs could travel their own path here.
This has to be one of the most fundamental sins of the current system. For example, you can't register a trademark for a string in multiple classes (e.g., WIPO or US IPTO) just to prevent others from registering. No doubt it happens but it's very weak legally. There's a reason for that. It's not an oversight: they, the trademark registries, foresaw the problem. One of the selling points for new TLDs was that companies whose mark legally coincided, for example Delta Faucets and Delta Airlines, or Ford Motor Company and Ford Modeling Agency, had no outlet to register DELTA.something or FORD.something with the very limited set of TLDs. Doubly so for new companies or products which didn't even exist when these domains were grabbed defensively. It's perfectly reasonable -- I realize there are some exceptions where brand confusion might still occur -- for Delta Faucets and Delta Airlines to register and defend the trademark "Delta" in their respective usage classes (faucets vs airline) without conflict. But no similar provision was ever made for domains. Delta Airlines could register DELTA.FAUCETS first (if that TLD existed) and Delta Faucets was just out of luck other than perhaps offering to buy the domain from the airline company or possibly trying to manufacture some sort of UDRP (et al) action or similar. A route available perhaps to highly funded concerns but not most. Or maybe try to register something less appealing, perhaps DELTA.XYZ if the airline hadn't already snapped that up also. My examples are very large, well-known corporations but substitute with newer, smaller concerns. This aspect of new TLDs is profoundly amateurish and unprofessional along with encouraging the acquisition of strings which represent no activity whatsoever, cybersquatting challenges aside, but why create, as the legal phrase calls it: An attractive nuisance? I say profoundly because as mentioned above major trademark registries had already rejected this model long before the internet even existed. If there were ever an independent, external review of this system I believe this would be cited as prima facie evidence of collusion and self-dealing. Not in theory but in practice, and on a massive scale. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*