IN
THIS COLUMN the authors of The Domain Name
Handbook weigh in. Look here for informal comments on the
domain name activities, disputes, news, bylaws
amendments, voting process and policies of
ICANN.
By
Ellen Rony - Prepared comments delivered as a panelist at
the ICANN At
Large Study
Committee
Meeting on August 13, 2001
The At
Large Membership is ICANN's tar baby. For those
unfamiliar with the Uncle Remus about Bre'r Rabbit, a tar
baby is a situation from which it is impossible to
extract yourself. Consider the image.
By
Ellen Rony - This article was written
for
Matrix News
June 2001
The .ORG
top level domain is the weakest sibling of celebrated
.COM. A slowing economy has turned dot-com into
dot-comatose, but dot-orgs have always languished on the
sidelines, receiving attention mostly by spillover.
Attached at the hip through shared registry
administration, ORG is a proverbial pretender to the
throne. If you can't get the domain name you want in COM,
you check whether it is available in .NET or
.ORG.
By
Ellen Rony - This article was written for
Matrix
News
May 1, 2001
Those
attempting to comprehend the antics of the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and the
impending changes in registry services might find several
cardinal themes in play: control, Machiavellian politics,
semantic gymnastics and a zero-sum game. The latest
ICANN-VeriSign Agreement manifests all these in certain
measure.
By
Ellen Rony - This article was published on
Domain
Notes
on November 2, 2000
Market
theory suggests that with moreTLDs, registrants will have
greater opportunity to acquire the names they want. As
the supply of TLDs increases, the resale prices for
desirable names will collapse, removing the profit
incentive that drives domain speculation. However,
trademark owners have not embraced this
solution.
By
Ellen Rony - This article was published on
Domain
Notes
on October 2, 2000
October 2
was the deadline for submitting proposals. How many TLDs?
Which ones? How soon will they be functional? It's
anyone's guess, but the technical coordinating body,
which holds such key decisions very close to its virtual
chest, has provided us with some discernible
clues.
By
Ellen Rony - This article was published on
Domain
Notes
on July 6, 2000
On June
27, Procter & Gamble announced its intention to sell
nearly 100 of its "consumer-friendly" domain names
acquired nearly five years ago.
By
Ellen Rony - June 2000
The
Intellectual Property Constituency recommends granting
all trademark owners a sunrise exclusion on domain names
when new generic top level domains are introduced. The
Sunrise+20
proposal is an infringement avoidance mechanism in the
form of a pre-emptive right to register the mark and 20
variations as domain names before registration is made
available to the general public. The Words First Project
is being launched to collect common dictionary words that
are now registered as trademarks.
By
Ellen Rony - May 2, 2000
Working
Group B was created in Berlin last summer explicitly to
address Chapter
Four
of the Final Report of the WIPO Internet Domain Name
Process, "The Problem of Notoriety: Famous and Well-known
Marks". The report insinuates support for a
Trademark
Sunrise+20 Proposal
submitted on deadline by the Intellectual Property
Constituency. The proposal is inherently inequitable,
operationally impractical, internally inconsistent, and
nonconforming with the tenets of trademark
law.
By
Ellen Rony - March 31, 2000
On June
25, 1999, ICANN's Names Council resolved to create
Working Group B to review the treatment of Famous
Trademarks. The entrance criteria for what is globally
"famous" are not defined and do not exist.
By
Ellen Rony - This article was published on
Domain
Notes
on February 28, 2000
What are
your long term plans for your domain name? Do you expect
to convey the name and the goodwill associated with it to
an interested buyer or bequeath it your heirs? Perhaps
you intend to use the domain name to secure a loan for a
business expansion or for your child's college tuition.
You may be in for a surprise.
By
Ellen Rony - February 20, 2000
This is a
quiz. Who is the cybersquatter/hoarder in this
example--the trademark owner or the domain
registrant?
By
Ellen Rony - January 2000
Here is a
new term to add to the Internet lexicon: reverse domain
name denigration. RDND occurs when a corporation
registers a domain name that deprecates itself, to
preempt others from claiming it.
By
Ellen Rony - November 16, 1999
What does
an expansion project for the San Francisco Airport have
to do with ICANN?
By
Ellen Rony - September 27, 1999
On
September 25, 1999, a message from John Patrick of IBM
was posted on several DNS-related mailing lists. As one
who has closely monitored and archived ICANN's
development and the evolution of the administration of
the DNS for 3.5 years, I take great exception to several
assertions that Mr. Patrick's message contains.
By
Ellen Rony - September 24, 1999
Recently I
was asked, what alternative to ICANN will stand up to
global scrutiny? An interesting and worthwhile question.
For starters, perhaps the Internet contracts, agreements
and standards oversight should be moved under the sphere
of the Federal Communications Commission, not the
Department of Commerce, where it currently
resides.
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CO-AUTHORS
of
The Domain Name Handbook
.
. . and siblings
-
ELLEN
RONY, M.A.
|
-
PETER
RONY, Ph.D
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