Isn’t it the main fear that united.web, to name a random example, will wind up being held for ransom by some cybersquatter or other?

True Kevin, we live in an overly flooded legal system, but no one can rightfully claim a ‘generic’ or a ‘dictionary word’ use… in each and every classification.
Only the weaker TM owners are squeeking as the iron clad TMs are mum as they have nothing to worry about. Trust this helps

I am glad you wrote your note as it reflects something that I’ve been saying for years, which is that there is no need for a central authority of domain names for the entire internet.  The point you make, that those with cognizable legal rights in a name have means, outside of ICANN, to enforce their rights, makes ICANN a dispensable institution.

There are implications, however, that are much broader than mere trademark matters.  In fact the recognition that there are existing, non-ICANN, processes, can lead a market based, consumer-choice driven solution to the top level domain wars.

I am an advocate of competing, consistent DNS root systems.

In other words I do not subscribe to the proposition that the internet must have exactly one catholic DNS root.  (There is no technical means, nor DNSSEC, to prevent competing DNS roots.  And, in fact, there have long been root zone definitions other than the legacy NTIA/Verisign/ICANN root zone, and the sky has not fallen as a result.)

Rather I subscribe to the proposition that there can be many DNS roots, each with its own catalog of top level domains, and that the real issue is not that of singularity of root but rather consistency of the contents.

The key word is “consistency”.  I, like most everyone else, don’t like internet surprises.  (I even less like misrepresentations of identity.)

As you recognize, trademark (and others with rights in names) have the means to enforce their right.  This means that there are non-ICANN solutions to situations in which there may be dissonance between TLD names in different roots.

This, in turn, means that the whole matter of new TLDs can be left to the normal processes of providers “building their brand” and consumers choosing among competing offerings.  Just as no centralized planning authority is required to regulate the deployment and naming of brands of canned soups on shelves of competing supermarket chains, no central planning authority is required to pre-define the deployment and naming of top level domains.

Where there is a name conflict there already exist legal processes to resolve the matter; when it comes to whether there is a need, consumers decide with their choice whether to use or to avoid a particular offering.

I elaborated on these ideas in more detail about two years ago in “What would the internet be like had there been no ICANN?”

The deeper question is do we want the internet to be run on the basis of open entry to providers and consumer choice among those providers or do we want to continue down the road of the kind of central planning authorities used in the old USSR.

Ken, good points, I too was once a harsh critic of ICANN and never liked behind the door sluggish decisions, but things are changing and we need a far stronger and transparent leadership like ICANN ever more so with the global expansion of internet users. The gTLD program is a big test for them and we all await the outcome.

I remember lots of instances of overzealous trademark protection during earlier new TLD rounds, and various corporate lawyers spouting off in articles about how essential it was to protect their marks, like for instance the Caterpillar heavy-equipment company insisting that they absolutely had to have the word “cat” in all TLDs.  (What did they think about the .cat domain?)

Daniel, the domain name protection industry tried all such things and provided some small success. 25,000 registrations around every other major brand name is a joke. CAT is a brand like Coke and needed some protection. Bottomline weak names are problem and 95% of name out there are weak names.

But why shouldn’t feline enthusiasts have a chance to get a “CAT” domain?  Why should one company get a monopoly on a common word like that?

Dan, at times gtld is an open game, any group can try, but Protection can only be secured with a protectable name… CAT is cat. The global feline association may try to invest 500K?

One should not forget that a strong proponent of the .cat top level domain was a very well liked (and deservedly well liked) member of the ICANN board of directors from Barcelona Catalonia.

This ought not to reflect negatively on the person involved - who had every right to aspire to a TLD for his home region - but rather on the ICANN process that allowed the appearance of favorable treatment to occur.

By-way, I want .dog, the TLD for dyslexics.

.dog it is…. well done Karl