
A New Internet Domain: Extortion Or Free Speech? - dynofuz
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/04/07/397886748/a-new-internet-domain-extortion-or-free-speech
======
smutticus
The reporting on the new .sucks domain has been terrible, so here's what's
going on.

The new gTLD Program from ICANN did more than just instantiate new domains. It
created new processes and most importantly the Trademark Clearinghouse(TMCH).

The TMCH is a database of validated trademarks from around the world.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_Clearinghouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_Clearinghouse)

Along with the TMCH ICANN also created the Domain Protected Marks List(DPML).
When registries open up a new gTLD for registrations they must start with a
sunrise period. During this sunrise period a registry can allow trademark
holders whose trademark is registered in the TMCH early access to their
trademark.gTLD. This special sunrise price is set by the registry and can
basically be anything. Initially .sucks was talking about charging $25,000,
but they lowered it to $2,500.

After the sunrise period anyone can register a .sucks domain on a first-come,
first-serve basis. The important thing to remember is that after the sunrise
period the price discrimination goes away and both trademark holders and the
general public pay the same amount for domain names.

I'm a grad student at UC Berkeley who researches this stuff so AMA. I also
wrote the Wikipedia page for the Trademark Clearinghouse so I can vouch for
its correctness.

~~~
snowwrestler
Are you sure? My understanding is that the $2,500 price tag is not just during
the sunrise period, that is the fee for TMCH-listed domains. I was told by my
registrar to budget $2,500 annually for each TMCH-listed domain, into
perpetuity. (We declined.)

If a domain is not TMCH-listed, it will be $250 after the domain launches--
unless you can prove you're an unaffiliated individual, and then you can
access a special $10 registration. But for that price you can't run your own
website--instead the domain must redirect to a web forum that the registrar
will run (and no doubt put ads on).

It looks a lot like a shakedown to me...

edit: speling

~~~
smutticus
I stand somewhat corrected. It looks like Vox Populi has created a class
they're calling "Sunrise Premium Names" and will price discriminate even after
the sunrise period ends.

[http://domainincite.com/18246-halt-perverted-sucks-
shakedown...](http://domainincite.com/18246-halt-perverted-sucks-shakedown-
now-demands-ipc) "Sunrise Premium names will always cost $2,500, even after
sunrise, when registered by the trademark owner."

This is basically without precedent, so it will be interesting to see how this
shakes out.

~~~
snowwrestler
There's an argument to be made that the purpose of trademark protection is to
protect against confusion, not against criticism.

It's hard to imagine that many consumers would confuse a website called
ford.sucks for the real actual Ford Motor Company. If it goes to litigation, I
could see a U.S. federal judge deciding that the entire .sucks TLD is
basically immune to the consumer confusion argument, with possibly a few
exceptions for vacuum cleaner companies, sump pump manufacturers, and others
who might "professionally suck."

Personally I think it's foolish to try to preemptively register every nasty
domain name. It's a big language out there, and crowdsourcing seems to work
really well when it comes to insults.

But, a lot of companies are super sensitive to criticism, and Vox Populi is
obviously trying to profit off of that.

------
JonoW
I don't really see how {company-name}.sucks is any worse than {company-
name}sucks.com. Do firms really go around registering every combination of bad
words with their brand name, with every standard TLD? Can't imagine they do...

~~~
ownagefool
Yes.

Not everyone does this of course, but anecdotally, some big companies have
companies that scour the web looking for negative feedback. This dept often
doesn't have the power to fix anything, so they'll buy up domains and give out
freebies.

~~~
Alupis
So, every time ICANN wants more money they can just roll out a new TLD that
has a negative connotation?

There was a big uproar in the mainstream press when Taylor Swift bought up a
bunch of explicit domains that could be used to deface her online presence...
ICANN could just open up more explicit TLD's and she'll have to buy more and
more.

Or what about companies buying up entire TLD's without intent to be a
registrar -- like Google's $25 Million purchase of .app.

In short order all the "good" TLD's will be squatted on and we'll be in the
same exact boat we are now with .com,.net, etc.

~~~
snowwrestler
Yes, these have been some of the arguments against the creation of all the new
TLDs all along.

It's important to note that ICANN does not set the pricing for each TLD. The
pricing is set by the registrar who wins the right to control that TLD.

ICANN does get revenue from each TLD registrar, but I think it's the same for
each TLD. I don't think ICANN gets a direct cut of each GoDaddy sale, for
example, but GoDaddy pays ICANN a fee to be able to sell domains.

------
krapp
Can we either get rid of TLDs or make them as arbitrary as the rest of the URL
already?

Is there a good reason why I shouldn't be able to go to some registry site and
just buy ycombinator.clownpenis.fart if I want to, other than possibly being
sued by ycombinator and/or NBC?

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
I would argue that limiting the number of TLDs helped provide a measure of
authority to those TLDs.

I'm not saying that TLDs having a measure of authority was good, safe, or
barely anything more than barely useful, but at least you could teach grandma
to make sure she was on facebook.com instead of facebook.click

------
adwf
I think it won't be long before someone gets sued over a .sucks or .porn style
domain. Then we'll see what happens in court. Due to the nature of the
internet it'll be a debate fought multiple times internationally as well, eg.
the USA has completely different slander laws to the UK.

The extortion angle is particularly interesting, because $2500 isn't exactly
small money to prevent your personal name being registered on a .sucks domain.
I think it would be wise for any of these new tld providers to offer free
takedowns of malicious sites in order to avoid lawsuits. Extortion isn't a
minor crime - it'll get you serious time in jail.

------
lukifer
For a select few, this will be an awesome branding opportunity (hoover.sucks,
dyson.sucks).

Ultimately, this is not a matter of free speech, which has always been a
negative right: if you're not facing criminal charges or government
harassment, your free speech rights are intact.

Rather, this racket highlights why the web deserves a decentralized naming
protocol, rather than an institution that combines the worst elements of
arbitrary federal beauracracy and predatory, rent-seeking capitalism.

~~~
chii
how do you do decentralized naming properly? bitcoin-like mechanism (where if
you use more computing power, you get to own more names - on the average
anyway)?

~~~
shawabawa3
There's already namecoin:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin)

~~~
chii
as i said:

> where if you use more computing power, you get to own more names

------
borgia
>Independent activists who want to use the suffix and pledge to blog can pay
as little as $10 a year.

>But if a person wants to preemptively block their name, that will cost $200 a
year.

So you can buy a domain name on which to be critical about yourself for $10
per year, or fork out $200 to prevent others from doing so?

Do I _have_ to be critical of myself in that case? Or could I have
borgia.sucks and have it listing my accomplishments and how great a person I
am?

------
tracker1
IMHO, if I were a large company, and someone tried to use my mark in such a
way, I would simply sue them for trademark infringement. The registrar in this
case... it's worked in suits against google in terms of advertising, and I'm
pretty sure it would hold up here.

In this case, I'm pretty sure a corporation protecting its' mark would win,
and that it'd likely cost more than $2500. But for a corporation with a
dedicated team of lawyers on-staff not a big deal.

~~~
arfliw
It's not considered trademark infringement if you use it to criticize the
company and you don't profit off of confusion with their mark. See
paypalsucks.com which has won lawsuits against PayPal.

If it's <company>.app or something then you're right. But 'sucks' is a unique
case with precedent.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's not considered trademark infringement if you use it to criticize the
> company and you don't profit off of confusion with their mark.

That's true of US law, in part because of the interaction of the US's
unusually strong free-speech protections with trademark law.

US law is not the only law which provides trademark rights which might be
infringed by the use of gTLD.

------
mbarrett
Side note. johnberardsucks.com is avail.

------
normloman
Not extortion. Free speech. Freedom of speech means the freedom to criticize.
As long as hate sites make clear that they are not affiliated with the thing
they criticize, let them say what they want. If it's false information, sue
them for libel. If it's true, get your shit together.

~~~
dynofuz
the extortion part is heightened by the registrar for .sucks where it is
asking organizations who own the trademark to pay 2500/yr to get a domain name

~~~
adwf
The possible upside is that if it's trademarked, no-one else should be to
register the domain name either. However, that all depends on the
rigourousness of the registrar...

~~~
aroch
Except that's not the case. The .sucks registrar is selling the trdemark-
related domain for $10/y to someone who wants to criticize $Trademark, while
it would cost $TrademarkCompany $2500/y.

You can buy $yourname.sucks for $200/y, but someone who wants to criticize you
can buy it for $10/y.

Tiered pricing that charges more to people who aren't looking to disparage
themselves is predatory.

~~~
pjc50
That's hilarious. How did that get past the ICANN process?

~~~
mcguire
ICANN has a process?

No, really, they're just making stuff up as they go along. The idea of this
kind of "extortion" has been around for decades, since the early rounds of DNS
root name expansion.

~~~
duskwuff
Sure they have a process! You pay them the $185k application fee, and you get
your TLD. That's a process, right?

/s

------
arkistouk
The price is the sticking point for me... 2.5k is taking the piss!

------
nashashmi
edit: FYI, title got changed from "ycombinator.sucks - A New Internet Domain:
Extortion Or Free Speech? (npr.org)" which is why I used the website name down
here.

ycomibinator.sucks?

Maybe this is not such a bad idea. It can be a nice simple "living document"
of criticisms to yCombinator.

Often times, creators of products and services often look towards negative
feedback to see how they can make their product/service better.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
Then perhaps it's more prudent to provide a service that collects negative
feedback en masse as opposed to a targeted hit against one entity.

