|
I have said since 1996 that "new TLDs are two years again from whenever you ask" because from that date to today, whenever we are on the verge of actually creating new top level domains, somebody comes along and says "oh, we're in charge, we need to do a study, you can go home now" something we've seen with draft-postel, the IAHC committee, the IFWP and ICANN in an alphabet soup that spells one word: stall.
In comparison to the open and transparent processes used on the internet by people involved in new domains the trademark lobby operates with fax machines, back room meetings and multi million dollar lobbying budgets and have put off creation of new top level domains for over a decade. They have studied the problem and had new laws enacted to further their rights in cyberspace but still we hear we need to "study the problem" ?
When I hear consumers complain, I'll listen. But when producers complain on their behalf or pay people to complain, it's another thing. When reconciling "public sentiment" about new top level domains pay attention to the wording. Poeple blindly retweeting stories of "consumer confusion" begins to look suspect because of the precise alignment to wording in US fedral trademark acts that penalize "consumer confusion".
If you want to study something, depose corporations and find out how much each of them have spent lobbying against the creation of new top level domains. It wasn't just IBM.
Now imagine what that money could have done if it had been used to innovate or provide consumer choices instead of wasting time postponing the inevitable, the 1996 consensus decree from Jon Postel "There is widespread dissatisfaction about the absence of competition in domain name registration."
There still is.
The trademark lobby is exposing itself, and ICANN, to an ever increasing anti trust liability and deserves to be the subject of an investigation into influence peddling.
|
