I know that in our firm it is not really the $7 registration fees which
are the issue, even though x hundreds of registrations it adds up.  The
more serious cost is the tens of thousands of dollars in lost time while
people sort these things out (usually in the legal department, an expensive
resource), without even getting into the thousands more occasionally required
for a UDRP or for the legal threats and wrangling preceding one. It is
this lost time and trouble which I believe most people find the most aggravating
and wasteful, moreso than the registration fees per se, and regarding which
the thought of mutiplying it xfold for new TLDs is anathema.  

It sound like you are applying your creative juices in the right direction,
if you can develop a method which fairly preserves the (bonafide) rights
of TMholders with minimal hassle, then you may well significantly lessen
the reflexive antagonism re new TLDs. 

cheers/Rick

Rick Anderson

EVP, InterBorder Holdings Ltd

email: randerson@interborder.ca

cell: (403) 830-1798

office: (403) 750-5535

----- Original Message -----

From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org <owner-bc-gnso@icann.org>

To: BC gnso <bc-gnso@icann.org>

Sent: Mon Jul 06 23:03:03 2009

Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] Finding Common Ground Between Markholders and Legitimate
Domain Registrants

Hi Rick,

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 11:00 PM, Rick Anderson wrote:

> What I see wrong in this notion - at least as described here - is
that it probably encourages tasting, squatting, speculation as much as
it assists TMholders.  The unintended effect of subsidizing these
activities is not a great plan.

Thanks for the feedback. One method to refine the concept further is

to truly limit things to defensive registrations (as opposed to

speculative registrations at lower cost) through a link to an active

"base" domain name (one that does resolve). For example, the
domain

typo generator at DomainTools.com spits out a number of matches for

"Verizon":

http://www.domaintools.com/domain-typo/?q=verizon&mode=reg&status=b&rules%5B%5D=qwerty&rules%5B%5D=swap&rules%5B%5D=sticky&rules%5B%5D=look

Let's say that the "base" domain name is declared to be Verizon.com.

Then if Verizon wanted to own verizoln.com or verizom.com, but the

traffic from those domains wasn't worth $7/yr to Verizon (i.e. it

doesn't "pay" for them resolve), they could pay say $3/yr to
register

them but have no nameservers, at the same time linking it to

Verizon.com. They could do the same for domains in other TLDs,

declaring them "defensive registrations" that all link to one
base

domain that does resolve.

One could develop an algorithm to test whether a domain that is

declared as "defensive" is similar enough to that base domain
name to

qualify (e.g. a certain number of common characters, common typos like

wwwdomain.com, etc.). An algorithm probably wouldn't capture 100% of

defensive registrations, but it could probably reduce costs for a

healthy fraction of them.

There could also be a function to list all defensive registrations

(with no nameservers) for a given base domain, to make abusers easier

to bring to justice. For example, let's say someone other than Disney

did own wwwdisney.com and used that as their active "base" domain
for

speculative but low traffic domains (which didn't generate $7/yr worth

of traffic) such as wwwdisney.org. A markholder would be able to more

easily capture the entire set of typos that didn't resolve (and thus

were registered under the lower cost system) in one action because of

that linkage.

> As well, what actually makes sense with these secondary TM registrations
is to point them at the primary site (rather than to leave them to non-resolve).
 That's a better user experience, and if the holder has to go to the
effort of registering them (a bigger cost really than the reg cost), whatever
traffic they may generate may as well find its destination.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If the domain doesn't generate $7/yr

worth of traffic, a markholder might still keep the domain registered

in order to avoid facing the UDRP and legal costs of $5,000+ if the

domain is abused by someone else. If these marginal names could face

lower carrying costs (say $3/yr instead of $7/yr), that cost savings

could be dramatic, thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per

year.

Registry operators might not be happy by the loss of "fully priced"

defensive registration fees that they're used to currently, but that's

not a suitable business model to begin with. Depending on the

elasticity of demand, ironically registries might even actually

increase the number and total revenues from defensive registrations,

as the lower price for domains deemed "defensive" would actually

increase the total number registered and possibly the total

profitability for the registry.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos

416-588-0269

http://www.leap.com/

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