NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] John Levine: "The New gTLD Chess Game"
John Levine: "The New gTLD Chess Game"
http://j.mp/ljj7mn (John R. Levine)
Beyond the government activity, there remains the likely threat of
lawsuits. Outside the ICANN bubble, new gTLDs are extremely unpopular,
being seen by large companies primarily as a shakedown in which
they'll have to spend $500K on a useless TLD to avoid squatters. (See
for example, this story at the Financial Times.) It wouldn't take a
whole lot of trademark lawyers to figure out that rather than pay
$500K each plus probably $50k/yr for useless TLDs, a few of them could
sue ICANN and bring the process to a screeching halt as they engage in
discovery and depose all the board members and senior staff, arguing
that selling overpriced vanity domains is not consistent with the
mission of a California not-for-profit which is what ICANN is.
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--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com