Anybody writing a user orientated executive summary of the key implications of IDN's for holders of second and third level domains? Christian On 28 Dec 2009, at 09:58, Joly MacFie wrote:

...

...

He's a little miffed, saying things like

...

...

WTF!! how is this going to work???

Hi, it is weird. TC, URS or UDRP can only handle the conflicts between trademarks and domain names. Neither "mobileappstore" nor "手机应用商店<http://%E6%89%8B%E6%9C%BA%E5%BA%94%E7%94%A8%E5%95%86%E5%BA%97.cn/>" seem trademarkable for obvious descriptiveness and non-distinctiveness. Neither do I believe that either domain name has acquired the secondary meaning through use so as to suffice for any trademark claim. If no trademark involved, no trademark measure applicable at all.

Hong

Absolutely. Although since mobile apps are one of the fastest growing sources of revenue on the net right now, it's almost as valuable as having something as generic as business.com etc..

Why I posted was to show that, while we have all been putting a lot of thought into new gTLDs, it could be that the already commenced rollout of second level IDNs, particularly in the .com arena, is going to cause as much of a ruction.

This was a tech-savvy fellow shocked! to find out that he had by no means nailed down the name even in .com. He had not considered the possibilty of writing the same word in a different character set, let alone in translation.

I'm sure he's not the only one who will be coming to the realization that the Latin character set is by no longer global in reach in this day and age, and we will hear many more howls of pain. Meanwhile more $$ for verisign etc..

In answer to your question of motive Alan, it wasn't clear, but I think it was very likely to offer a deal, even if just to explore a possible partnership in finding deep pocketed buyer.

With the new restrictions on .cn registrations we're likely to see a lot more chinese .com speculative activity one would imagine.

What At-Large could do is perhaps review ICANN's published guidelines on this, and their accessability. When the guy posted, the only references in response, were a couple of newspaper articles and wikipedia.

j -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 917 442 8665 Skype:punkcast WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com ---------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...

At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

2009/12/29 Joly MacFie <joly@punkcast.com>

Deafening silence.

Hi Joly, We're all volunteers here. Some have been tied up doing other things over the last week or so. Some of us have even been involved in ICANN-related stuff in other fields. You're as much a part of the solution as anyone here. If we all just stood back and waited for things to be done by someone else, we'd be getting exactly the response you're suggesting. Much of what we have been able to accomplish have been the work of individuals who have taken initiative. This is indeed an important issue, as as part of At-Large it's up to us -- you as much as me or any other subscriber to this email list -- to raise this up the food chain, come up with a specific plan and then assemble appropriate resources to execute. Even if ICANN itself does not see the need to alert existing registrants regarding confusion and possible scams arising out of the growth of IDNs, At-Large can do so itself. But I think we can indeed make the case that ICANN itself bears responsibility here. I'll put it on the agenda for the next NARALO meeting; let's start to figure out what to do about it, and who amongst us will take the lead(s)... Are you in? - Evan

2009/12/29 James Seng <james@seng.sg>

I cannot, however, understand the issues/complains about translation.

Why would someone who don't understand Chinese knows that "手机应用商店.cn<http://xn--czr79ska309ap0hmnx.cn> " means mobileappstore.com?

For that matter, how would a Chinese knows "手机应用商店.cn<http://xn--czr79ska309ap0hmnx.cn>" translate to mobileappstore.com?

The fact is they don't.

手机应用商店.cn <http://xn--czr79ska309ap0hmnx.cn> could likely be translate to handphoneusageshop.cn or that mobileappstore.com could be translated to 移动软件商店.com<http://xn--5nqw3gqvcuuovp8as50a.com> .

This is all correct. However, none of the factual accuracy of the above statements may prevent an aggressive and/or unethical registrar from pressuring domain owners to "protect" their name by buying IDN versions. Such "marketing" may suggest implied threats that if you don't try to buy a name of similar maening (or similar phoenetic sound) in another language the owners of IDNs may come after *you*. Some of the above mail explains correctly why these threats are not valid, but this may not be understood by casual registrants. The purpose of an At-Large initiative on the matter -- at least as I see it -- is to provide information to registrants (and the public) regarding the coming growth of IDNs. Such information should address issues that could become fears, such as: - Are IDNs even valid? Will they take me to a malware site? - How do I get to domains that I can't type on my keyboard? - How do I need to protect my domains against others that look similar? (ie, francais.com versus français.com <http://xn--franais-xxa.com>) - How do I protect myself against translated versions of my site's name? (ie mobileappstore.com vs 移动软件商店.com <http://xn--5nqw3gqvcuuovp8as50a.com/>) - How do I protect myself against IDNs that translate into similar meanings to my site name? (ie, mobileappstore.com <http://mobileappstore.com/> vs 手机应用商店.com<http://%E6%89%8B%E6%9C%BA%E5%BA%94%E7%94%A8%E5%95%86%E5%BA%97.cn/> ) - How do I prevent such sites making trademark claims against my domain for the same reasons? The answers to these questions may seem evident to people here, but not IMO to the general public. And I certainly see the fear and confusion that may accompany IDNs being exploited by unethical people. Informing the public of the issues about IDNs, reduicing fear and fraud, are what I see to be the main issues here. To be certain, many questions and fears about IDNs will come not from new users, but from longtime users who are used to an all-latin-alphabet Internet and will be surprised (and maybe even scared) of unrecognizable names. I am not sure, however, if these are the same as Joly's concerns. - Evan

great questions + Should users consider trademarking the punycode of their registered names? Christian On 29 Dec 2009, at 17:48, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

2009/12/29 James Seng <james@seng.sg>

...

I cannot, however, understand the issues/complains about translation.

Why would someone who don't understand Chinese knows that "手机应用商店.cn<http://xn--czr79ska309ap0hmnx.cn> " means mobileappstore.com?

For that matter, how would a Chinese knows "手机应用商店.cn<http://xn--czr79ska309ap0hmnx.cn>" translate to mobileappstore.com?

The fact is they don't.

手机应用商店.cn <http://xn--czr79ska309ap0hmnx.cn> could likely be translate to handphoneusageshop.cn or that mobileappstore.com could be translated to 移动软件商店.com<http://xn--5nqw3gqvcuuovp8as50a.com> .

This is all correct. However, none of the factual accuracy of the above statements may prevent an aggressive and/or unethical registrar from pressuring domain owners to "protect" their name by buying IDN versions. Such "marketing" may suggest implied threats that if you don't try to buy a name of similar maening (or similar phoenetic sound) in another language the owners of IDNs may come after *you*.

Some of the above mail explains correctly why these threats are not valid, but this may not be understood by casual registrants.

The purpose of an At-Large initiative on the matter -- at least as I see it -- is to provide information to registrants (and the public) regarding the coming growth of IDNs. Such information should address issues that could become fears, such as:

- Are IDNs even valid? Will they take me to a malware site?

- How do I get to domains that I can't type on my keyboard?

- How do I need to protect my domains against others that look similar? (ie, francais.com versus français.com <http://xn--franais-xxa.com>)

- How do I protect myself against translated versions of my site's name? (ie mobileappstore.com vs 移动软件商店.com <http://xn--5nqw3gqvcuuovp8as50a.com/>)

- How do I protect myself against IDNs that translate into similar meanings to my site name? (ie, mobileappstore.com <http://mobileappstore.com/> vs 手机应用商店.com<http://%E6%89%8B%E6%9C%BA%E5%BA%94%E7%94%A8%E5%95%86%E5%BA%97.cn/> )

- How do I prevent such sites making trademark claims against my domain for the same reasons?

The answers to these questions may seem evident to people here, but not IMO to the general public. And I certainly see the fear and confusion that may accompany IDNs being exploited by unethical people. Informing the public of the issues about IDNs, reduicing fear and fraud, are what I see to be the main issues here.

To be certain, many questions and fears about IDNs will come not from new users, but from longtime users who are used to an all-latin-alphabet Internet and will be surprised (and maybe even scared) of unrecognizable names.

I am not sure, however, if these are the same as Joly's concerns.

- Evan _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann...

At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

On 12/29/2009 08:39 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

Even if ICANN itself does not see the need to alert existing registrants regarding confusion and possible scams arising out of the growth of IDNs, At-Large can do so itself....

One might want to consider the personal and institutional risk of becoming the defendant in a defamation or other civil action if one does go forth and issue an "alert". There is a fine line between an unlawful scam and a clever marketing ploy. And publishing a negative statement about someone based merely on looking at a domain name and not examining actual activity and behavior may not be a safe course of action. --karl--

2009/12/29 Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com>

One might want to consider the personal and institutional risk of becoming the defendant in a defamation or other civil action if one does go forth and issue an "alert".

There is a fine line between an unlawful scam and a clever marketing ploy. And publishing a negative statement about someone based merely on looking at a domain name and not examining actual activity and behavior may not be a safe course of action.

Nowhere in my mail did I indicate an intent to identify specific bad practise, let alone bad actors. Registrants ought to know that they cannot be the successful target of an IP takedown attempt by a similar-meaning or soundalike IDN, even within the same TLD. If they still choose to buy IDNs for defensive or other purposes, that's their business. The Business Constituency has the task of making sure that commercial domain owners are aware of these rights; I suppose that NCUC/NCSG should be taking up that cause on behalf of non-commercial registrants; I can raise the issue with my contacts at NCSG about this. But whether the catalyst is the BC, NCSG, At-Large of ICANN corporate, all I'm asking for is an effort to make sure that registrants make decisions (such as the need to make defensive registrations) based on awareness rather than uncertainty. The intended result is that they may react in an informed manner to any campaigns targeted at them. Would this also be actionable? In the long term, a GNSO committee (of which I'm a member) is working to define statements of registrants' rights -- both to enumerate what exists and to develop a manifesto, so to speak, of what they ultimately should be. - Evan

Karl Auerbach wrote:

On 12/29/2009 04:57 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

...

In the long term, a GNSO committee (of which I'm a member) is working to define statements of registrants' rights -- both to enumerate what exists and to develop a manifesto, so to speak, of what they ultimately should be.

Moving away from domain name practices that are questionable, one might want to look at another issue, which is the panic driven, and potentially expensive, drive to splatter protective registrations across all TLDs...

I have been advocating in certain legal forums and meetings that we in the US consider an amendment to the Lanham Act, which is the US' trademark law, to say something along these lines:

No person who has a US Federally registered mark shall lose any protection of that mark as a result of not acquiring any domain name in any or all top level or subordinate domains.

The idea here is to prevent the panic driven registration of names on the basis of a perceived (or law-firm drummed-up frenzy) need to register everywhere in order to protect the base rights in a trademark.

Now, given that trademarks are only a small part of the range of rights that people might have in names - such as their personal names, the names of their deity(ies), the names of their residences, etc - perhaps I ought to rephrase things so that the proposal becomes:

No person who has a US Federally registered mark or other cognizable rights in a name or phrase shall lose any protection of that mark, name or phrase as a result of not acquiring any domain name in any or all top level or subordinate domains.

--karl--

I would certainly agree that is a good beginning. However I have a question or two and your are the expert here. How would this scale? How does jurisdiction overlap in terms of the intended users of the second level IDN's? This is not considering malicious behavior. What stops me in another country from deliberately imposing on a US registered trademark. I suspect this would the also fall under the Madrid Protocol? Or not? I guess I am opening up a can of worms. Derek

[Clicked on Send too early apologie -- patrick ] On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:34:32 +0100, Vittorio Bertola <vb@bertola.eu> wrote:

Just imagine what would happen if someone else now registered the properly spelled version, "università.com", which would possibly come out higher in search engine queries for "università", be seen as the "correct" version by the users, and in the end undermine the original website and business.

People would have a reasonable expectation that, once the proper "accented" version becomes available, people having registered the non-accented version would have priority in getting it. (Actually, the original expectation was that a variants system would be developed for accented Latin characters, so to avoid the problem altogether.)

However, no one at ICANN seemed interested in the issue - actually, no one even seemed to understand it. Everyone was just focused on two issues - introduce a bigger market by allowing new domain names, and keeping the governments from non-Latin countries happy.

I concur. We had a advisory committee meeting of the .lu ccTLD some months ago, and one of the issues on the table were IDNs, and how to prevent user confusion. Right now for example, all the public authorities are grouped under the "etat.lu" domain. Citizens expect to find the same web site under "état.lu". If they would find another unrelated web site, that would somehow hurt the trust relationship between the citizen and the state. We finally decided to have a sunrise period where existing domain name registrants could register the IDN variants of the existing domain name. Now, this is pretty easy for a TLD with 50.000 registrations and three latin character-based languages. Obviously, that does not scale for millions of registrations in gTLDs and all possible IDN variants. The short answer to Joly's original question is that one should exercise their own judgement as to the relevance to make defensive registrations. If I do not plan to do business in Japan, why should I register the domain name in Japanese script or even care ? And in case of an abusive registration by a third party there is always the UDRP and other legal actions. Patrick