Short Domain Names: Nominet and .UK consultation and proposal

[Andrew A. Adams]

An interesting briefing paper about short trade marks, in general and in 
domain names, appeared in my inbox today. As there is some issue of the 
minimum length for domain names in generic TLDs (particularly in ideographic 
character sets under IDN) I thought it would be of interest to those here.

http://tinyurl.com/2fxyvbs

Also, the proposal by Nominet to auction short domain names in .co.uk to 
current competing registered trade mark holders, then open it to unregistered 
mark holders, then auction the rest. Would such an approach be legitimate for 
a general approach by a new TLD operator, or must they always operate on a 
single-price first-come/first-served basis albeit possibly with sunrise 
periods? If so we seem to be backsliding into the bad old days of NSI and 
potentially a license to print money again if ICANN allocates a new gTLD 
(effectively creating scarce real estate ex nihilo) and allows such an 
auction during a sunrise period.


-- 
Professor Andrew A Adams       aaa at meiji.ac.jp
Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and
Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan