Hi, I really do not understnd the suprise, shock and gnashing of teeth about this. I certanly have expected and have been talking about it for a long time. The argument that this is not in the service of the public interest is funny, since people like Bertrand who wanted to only allow names that were in the public interst was shot down most definately as being just another beauty contest. whoever could build a business case and buy the bigget bucks was the best owner, we were told (except for the community names that most of those who might complain told us were not really possible) . This was also alwasy one of the reasons for the VI work; what if some company got a name for itself that it wanted to keep private using it for its own purposes;yeah i expect tha these users need to sign the RAA and pay that fee too. Why are we surprised that someone did what was expected to be one of the options. I think this is one of the innovations we were led to expect. What surprised me was the agribusiness approach to the thousand flowers ablooming that some of the purveyors of registry services engaged in. I expected some to buy bunches or even dozens and maybe even a score or two. But hundreds? That shocked me. And as I told some friends, I wasn't sure whether i was in awe or dread. But in the end, i think we got a diversity of approaches, and that strikes me as a good thing overall. avri "Michele Neylon :: Blacknight" <michele@blacknight.ie> wrote:

I think a couple of the mainstream media outlets picked up on this, but this really worries me and probably others:

http://www.internetnews.me/2012/06/14/big-brands-trying-to-corner-generic-na...

Regards

Michele

Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions ♞