>_From: Michael Malone
> 
> vicc§cia.net.au writes:
> > b) anti business sentiment amongst many of dns participants.
> > c) silly dns rules.
> 
> I don't believe that this is as cut and dried as you believe
> it to be.

ok lets look at a real world example. how does the no-generics
rule relate to the issue of name ownership. quite frankly it
is a right royal pain in the arse. to decline a domain name
on the grounds that it somehow related to the yellow pages as
currently happens is meaningless. take the application
(still to this date rejected) for dart.com.au by dart internet,
rejected on the grounds that darts are a product in the yellow
pages. customer is an ISP, does not and never has plans to sell darts.

again I ask the question what do we tell clients of the dns that
are colateral damage to rules that make no sense when applied.


<snip>
> Under the current system in .AU, the registrars ask the client
> to provide specific information.  Assuming that the information
> provided is correct, then the registrar makes a judgement call,
> based on (mostly) objective criteria, that the applicant has
> a reasonable "claim" to the use of this label.
> 
> Its not perfect, but it defensible.  In the past, I suspect it
> was an attempt to reduce hording, or ambit claims for many domains
> where unpaid registrars were doing the work.  Today, it is an
> attempt to protect the rights of entities with a legal claim to
> use of the label in other media.

its also an admited atempt to protect the registrars when they werent
commercial entities. surely we can ask the government for legislative
protection. why penalise the end users of the dns?

we are now talking about registrars as commercial businesses.
the legality of the situation is that the current scenario
is preventing the normal mechanism of judicial precendent.
the uk for example has set its precendent for domain name racketering,
one case is all it takes and there is grounds for proper and valid
protection of names under law, not under registrar paranoia.

the registars make dubious calls, they are not trained in legal matters,
they apply bush lawyers paradigm that in the end penalise the end users.

secondly dns rules allow contractions, and instantly you have
lost any legal grounds over name ownerships, what you are giving out
are nothing but nicknames once a contraction is applied.  hence again
it makes no sense to deny the issuing of nicknames in this case.

the "ownership" of a name is a legal issue not a registrar or
dns issue and the dns should stay out of it. the rules
cause colarteral damage forced by the dns system itself.
this is not right. contractions themselves cause name clashes,
micromagnetics was issued magnetics.com.au depsite the fact
that magnetics p/l exists. more colateral damage and whence
from there FCFS?

let businesses sort out name ownership amongst themselves,
when often what we are talking about is nothing but nicknames.


> An alternative method is to step a little further back.  Ask the
> client to specify the domain they wish to have, and have the
> client state that they have a legal claim to the domain.  Require
> the client to defend any action taken by another claimant, and
> the registrar becomes a technical only function.   We would accept
> the client's statement that they have a legal claim to the name,
> in the same way as we currently accept that the information they
> provide to us is true and correct.
> Personally, I prefer that option.  Strangely, it is actually at
> odd with you next request:

you have jumped too far ahead. what I am refering to is
that fact that client information is released in all cases
not for special cases. and as you say that the registrar refuse
to recognise the role of the ISP as agent. curerntly the role
of the ISP is as meat in the sandwich. they have to collect
all the money and cop the flack when the rejections come back
and are the bunnies who have to explain the amazing rational
behind the rules and regulations. for this they get a meager
$25 discount. I am not saying the registrar shoud not
be given some details, however I am saying the registrars
should make some efforts to protect the privacy of the client.
tonic.to is an example of a registry that protects clients privacy.

there is no grounds to the fact that you cant locate the owner
as you always have the ips to trace in any case. the publicising
of details does not make them correct but does leave the client
open to poaching and spaming. this is wrong.


> > f) lack of sub domains under .au.
> > 	there is a clear requirement for a substantial increase
> > 	in the number of sld under .au.
> 
> I'm not convinced that this is the answer.  The two public meetings
> held by ADNA in Sydney and Melbourne of trademark stakeholders seemed
> fairly clear in their view.  They wanted to be able to register
> in COM.AU, because that's where all the Big Boys are.  Aestethically,
> I'd prefer to tell people "look, this is where you can register",
> but that's often difficult.

I dont beleive that .tm and .pr are the way to go, and I dont believe
the public thinks so either. however .shop .firm .cmpy .ltd .pty etc
will have greater degree of public acceptance.

.tm and .pr are as evidenced by the public reaction a patch up
on the travesty that is the extisting system.

shows are sponsored by products, and business want to portray
trademarks and products in the same light as other self existing
labels not as specifically trademakrs and products.

there is clearly a demand for more commercial domains to alleviate
name clashes.



> I think the short term goal needs to be to clean up today's scene,
> and introduce competition, carefully, into the existing structure.
> The medium term goal is to evaluate the community demand for any
> additional 2LD's, and carefully deploy them into a proven competitive
> environment.
> 
> The Nominet model is worth a look.  Those interested may want to
> have a read of:
> 
> 	http://www.nominet.org.uk/nominet/intro.html

good. note there are .ltd.uk and .plc.uk as well as .co.uk. and there are
other slds as well.

Vic