I understand the answer from a Registrar on a technical point of view but the technical aspect of building anoter root on another (equivalent of a) DNS infrastructure comes second, certainly not first in such a project. It would be like using this argument as a way to explain a .BRAND applicant the benefit of owning his TLD: end-users don't want to hear about the DNS infrastructure. I don't want to learn about how the DNS actually works...who does but service providers?

Jean I'm sorry but you cannot simply decouple technical reality from a "plan" involving the DNS simply because it doesn't fit with your view of reality. Regards Michele

I know it is not so simple (and very expensive) to achieve but it is technically possible to build a second DNS infrastructure in the EU member States for the EC (European Commission) to Govern it. Governing such root on an "owned DNS" is what Angela Merkel has in mind in her speech, as a way to fight spying from abroad. If, added to her argument, a chance is made possible to build a better naming system (such as the one ICANN is actually offering end-users today), why not take it? A new root on a new DNS infrastructure is a start from scratch : it is the idea of the article (and sorry again for my poor English).

Do not quote Mummy (Mrs. Merkels nom de guerre) on anything related to the net. She has absolutely no clue whatsoever. The internet is newland, i.e. an undiscovered country, to her. Her speech is what you get when politicians dabble in issues they have no clue about.

I faced that with .WINE ("an application I did not submit myself" :-). I think the interesting point is that the discussion is initiated by the Chancellor of Germany. I would probably have never posted about it if this had not been the case.

Hello Volker, 1) segmentation does not mean blocking to anybody: many roots already cohabit, a new one on a different infrastructure and governed by a different body has never been done before. 2) this won't kill the Registrars' business model. The good thing about this is that users can be offered a different choice.

While there may be many roots already, there is only one official root and a few minor roots almost no-one uses. Segmentation is the first step to blocking and many regimes have already expressed their interest in this precisely because it means that they could control the flow of information even more tightly by shutting out traffic from outside their segment. It is a bad idea that would drag the internet back into the age of nation states.

The internet cannot be dragged "back to the age of nation states". It's barely past feudalism.

A root Governed by Member States does not mean that it has to be closed. The actual version of Internet is Feudalism to me: who is the authority to take down a website offering to build A-bombs (my list of examples is long)?

I agree with the first line of the article. Now we have experience of the ICANN new gTLD program, or is it still too early to say? "Epensive": is a feed-back I receive quite often from Brands. A new root can change that. Excellent article by the way.

Replying to yourself now? Wow!

No, "October 2005" is my answer to your "And here's a clear explanation as to". Pressed the wrong button.

but I guess it re-opens old discussions. I received that link (dated 2000) as an answer: "IAB Technical Comment on the Unique DNS Root": https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2826.txt Interesting I guess.

What I read below the photo in the BBC article is: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel is proposing building up a European communications network to help improve data protection." My understanding of the article is that she wants to control it (or whoever would be in charge of it). My article says: "take this opportunity to create a new naming system and "upgrade the Internet". I disagree with this styatement: "TLDs aren't very important". They are the main reason recently why people have paid more interest in ICANN.

So long as nobody was required to use their fake root, probably none. If they demanded that businesses in the EU used the official EU government run root, I expect we could hear the screaming if we opened our window here on the other side of the Atlantic.

John, I don't understand which fake root you are referring to. There are many small alternative roots. Are you referring to these?

This is, I gather, IOD's .web, the one where he tried to give Jon Postel a check and then claim Postal had accepting his application 15 years ago. The argument that he somehow had first dibs because he asked first never had a legal basis. Anyone who applied in a previous round waived remedies against ICANN (see the nitpicking in the Name Space suit) so there's no basis there. The term '.WEB' is a registered trademark of an unrelated company in Virginia, so he has no basis there. Whoever ICANN picks to run their .web won't claim to be IOD. Anyone who wants to register with him can still do so, anyone who wants to point at his name servers can still do so. In view of his notable failure to attract business over the past decade and a half, any argument that ICANN's .web will interfere with him is at best totally speculative. So what's the basis for legal action?

ICANN permission is not necessary to establish a business in California, or in any other location. IOD went into business. totally in accord with the law, with a product called .web. Federal trademark registration is not mandatory; common law protection of product names still exists. I was a customer. ICANN wasn't even yet asking for applications for the year 2000 round when we did this. That product has worked happily for me continuously for more than a decade. It's not my problem is some people can't use it, that's their choice; it's enough that it works for me. And I will be harmed if it stops working. Now if another company, with our without, ICANN's permission comes into California and starts selling a similar product with the same name, that may violate California rules against unfair competititon. If so, it is game over for the newcomer, at least in California, even if they have ICANN's blessing. This has nothing to do with ICANN's approval of IOD. It is rather that a newcomer is trying to displace an existing business and contractual relationships. So when you ask about damages you really ought to start by asking who has grounds for legal redress - IOD, yes. But also every customer, such as myself. Money damages? Perhaps, but because they are hard to measure and money doesn't really serve to compensate, injunctive relief against the newcomer might be more appropriate. So ICANN's designated choice for .web might be able to go into business elsewhere, but they better take care about operating in California.

At this point, on the order of 0.000001% of Internet users can resolve your .web name. When ICANN delegates .web, that won't change any of the configurations that point to IOD's servers, so those 0.000001% of Internet users will still see your domain. Where's your damages? IOD's claim that he'd be fantastically rich if only ICANN had accepted his application would not be persuasive to any court I know.

Under legal procedures, the fact of violation of law is established. Then the question of remedy is addressed; it is at that stage that quantitive measures are attempted. But quantitive measures are not needed for relief - the law recognizes that there are things that can not be measured in money or repaired with money. Moreover, on the internet, which is a world of hyper expansive growth, the damages caused by denying one an opportunity to participate can be huge. Imagine the damages that would have accruded had AltaVista been able to deny existence to Yahoo or Google back in those formative years. That's IOD's damages. But there are damages to those of us who have existing business relationships and usages. Those are separate from any harms suffered by IOD. In my case, my damages would be a disruption of an ongoing use of the interenet. The cost of that to me is difficult to measure and also hard to compensate with money. In those situations equitable relief, such as an injunction is an appropriate remedy. Or to put it another way around - how much is the newcomer, that is not in established business anywhere else, damaged by not being able to enter a marketplace (California) in which it has no established presence or customers for an untested product for which there are many providers of similar, but differently named, products? This is not something that never actually happens - companies that move into new regions often find prior uses of company names or products. The newcomer is obligated to find an accomodation - often by buying out the incumbent - else risk prohibition from the region.

...is in your use of the concepts "product" and "name of the product" as if, in this context, those were distinguishable concepts. They're not. In making this unexamined false distinction of yours, you don't see that you necessarily have to define the "product" as "registration services in a .web TLD", where ".web" being that string of characters is essential to the definition of what you are calling the "product" for the purpose of claiming unfair competition. To put it another way, putting "McDonald's" on a stand which sold "hamburgers" did not prevent anyone else from coming into California and selling hamburgers. Now, your objection here is along the lines of "no, I mean TLD registration services" is the "product" and .web is merely the "name" of the product. The problem is that in the relevant marketplace, someone wanting to register and use a ".web" name isn't looking for a brand of TLD service, the are looking for a domain name that ends in ".web". They want it as a functional thing, and couldn't give a hoot who is providing it or how the internet works. In other words, what they are looking for is the name qua name. The "name" is the "product". Levi Strauss sold pants to people who were looking for pants. He put his name on them to distinguish them from other pants. A .web TLD registry sells ".web names" to people who are looking for ".web names". A .web TLD registry does NOT sell "names" for people who are looking for "names", and then stick ".web" on it in order to distinguish them from other registries. You have drawn boxes around the concepts of the "product" and the "name of the product" as if those are two different things here, Karl, and as if it is somehow to be assumed that was a valid distinction. The point of ".web" here is not to serve as an distinctive identifier somehow selected by the registry to apply to the products they sell to customers, like Levi's pants, but the entire POINT here is to provide a registration service to other people so that THEY can put ".web" on whatever they want. In other words, nobody was showing up at Levi's shop looking to put a "Levi's" label on their own pants - they were looking to buy a pair of pants he made. In contrast, customers of a .web TLD registry are looking to stick ".web" onto the end of something of their own. It's inherent in the definition of the "product" here per se.

I am aware that IOD was unable to establish a Federal trademark in .web - because of USPTO policies about DNS names and trademarks. The real issue, however, is the fact that there was a operating business in California of buying names in a .web top level domain. I am a one of the customers. California has its own laws about business acts or practices that are misleading or deceptive. Any business that comes into California and starts selling names in .web could be construed as running afoul of those laws - because they create confusion betwen the pre-existing sales (and existing contracts) for domain names in .web. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=17001-18000&file=17200-17210 A business that comes into California selling domain names in .web ought to consider whether it wants to face a potential claim that is is in engaging in these unlawful practices. That's hardly a good way to launch a new business in a major market. A company that wants to sell domain names in .web here in California might find it prudent to consider how to quiesce these kinds of claims before they are raised. Also, ICANN itself might want to evaluate whether it is itself at risk of violating these statutes - ICANN can hardly claim any innocence or lack of knowledge about the pre-existance of IOD selling names in .web.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "the .web trademark", but if you are referring to Application No. 85/444,900 that is a pending registration application which is under refusal. The attorney prosecuting the application has made a reply to that refusal which is nearly comical in the "out of the frying pan into the fire" department, since they are now expressly arguing (to overcome a deceptiveness refusal) that they are an applicant to run a .web TLD. I gather this attorney is unfamiliar with how they have essentially been drawn in to make that point clear, so that the Examining Attorney can issue the standard USPTO refusal of "TLD strings for domain registry services". Straight from the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (the guide followed by the USPTO Examiners): --- 1215.02(d) Marks Comprised Solely of TLDs for Domain Name Registry Services If a mark is composed solely of a TLD for “domain name registry services” (e.g., the services of registering .com domain names), registration must be refused under Trademark Act §§1, 2, 3, and 45, 15 U.S.C. §§1051, 1052, 1053, and 1127, on the ground that the TLD would not be perceived as a mark. The examining attorney must include evidence from the LexisNexis® database, the Internet, or other sources to show that the proposed mark is currently used as a TLD or is under consideration as a new TLD. If the TLD merely describes the subject or user of the domain space, registration must be refused under Trademark Act §2(e)(1), 15 U.S.C. §1052(e)(1), on the ground that the TLD is merely descriptive of the registry services. ----- So, the spectacle of watching the applicant pay good money to pay an attorney to argue "But our proposed mark is not deceptive because we are intending to run the .web registry!" is just pure delight. It's like watching Wile E. Coyote just before he realizes he's run off a cliff.

...is that the attorney for the applicant in that application further amended the description of services to registration services "featuring the registration of domain names with the gTLD that appears in the mark". Doh! In other words, "yes, the mark is descriptive of the services". It would have cost less to just send in a Reply saying "Dear USPTO, Please refuse this application. Sincerely, Applicant."