Hello, Without responding to every point: On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 8:50 AM, Kurt Pritz <kurt@kjpritz.com> wrote:
Third, after-the-fact remedies are always significantly more expensive than before-the-fact. Even with loser-pays UDRP, invoking the UDRP or URS remedy takes several lawyer and management hours. Preventative costs are always 10-100x less that curative costs.
The key difference is that curative rights would apply to a much smaller subset domain names, namely *only* the actual abusive registrations. So, even if the curative costs are higher for some names, on balance the total costs are actually *lower* with the elimination of sunrise. Most companies are *already* making this decision calculus, i.e. there are 40,000+ TMCH marks, yet only 130 or so sunrise registrations on average per TLD. So, more than 99% of TMCH registrants (and an even higher percentage of the millions of TM holders worldwide) are doing the math and finding that, for them, it's rational to wait for landrush or focus only on post-registration abuse, because one's overall costs of fighting cybersquatting are lower than if one registered in sunrise for every possible TLD. If "sunrise" is seen as an "insurance policy", most TM holders do the math and find that the "premiums" (costs of registering in each sunrise, instead of waiting for landrush or not registering at all) are too high, relative to the actual risks. Are there some TM holders who use the sunrise that are either (1) very paranoid about the risks (doing the math incorrectly), or (2) doing the math correctly and buying the insurance properly? (e.g. the most famous brands where possible damage might actually be high if they instead waited to register in landrush)? For group (1), we're doing them a service by eliminating the sunrise. They'll be better off, by not having bought the overpriced insurance policy. The "racket" of scaremongering that tricks them into usnig the sunrise periods is eliminated. For group (2), these are the largest companies who can *most afford* to deal with that damage (through the courts, UDRP/URS, etc.). They can deal effectively with whatever rules are on the table, and don't need "cheap insurance policies." If there was accurate/verified WHOIS and other accountability measures (loser pays for UDRP, etc.) to deter the professional cybersquatters, that helps group (2) and markholders in general far more than sunrise periods do. When Verizon and Microsoft sued in real court: http://www.loffs.org/verizon-vs-ireit/ http://www.loffs.org/verizon-v-navcatsys-et-al/ http://domainnamewire.com/2008/12/24/verizon-wins-33-million-in-cybersquatti... http://www.loffs.org/microsoft-cases/ those actions did far more to reduce cybersquatting than anything ICANN has done, as it held the bad actors directly accountable and sent a strong message to others. Sincerely, George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/