[12317] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
NOT! Re: Name Reg. Time for Policy Change
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Einar Stefferud)
Mon May 16 01:49:58 1994
To: com-priv@psi.com
Reply-To: Stef=com@nma.com
From: Einar Stefferud <Stef=com@nma.com>
Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 12:13:57 -0700
Gentlepeople --
This is not the time for any INTERNIC or IANA policy change,
other than to perhaps announce loudly want the policy now is.
I have worked through all this over the last 6 years in connection
with the ANSI register for OSI names for X.500 and X.400 in C=US.
ANSI does a big dance around the idea of a challenge period of 90 days
following publication (in Standards Actions) of new name applications.
There are also rules for how to handle challenges, including fees to
be paid for challenges, etc, et al...
That any of this has any effect is, I believe, just fiction, because,
in the end, the ultimate authority to adjudicate is in the hands of
the courts of the land (e.g., The United States) and nothing ANSI may
or may not do will remove the action from the jurisdiction of the C=US
courts.
Thus, the DNS rules are perfectly proper as they stand.
Anyone may register any name, subject to the laws of of the land
(including all standing Intellectual Property Law), and if the laws of
the land are violated, then the mechanics of the law may be applied.
In short, the proper owner of a name that is improperly registered my
challenge the registrant and seek remedy as appropriate under the law.
This of course can take many forms.
1. A simple phone call or EMail message explaining the facts...
2. A formal letter from legal counsel demanding resolution.
3. A legal action of some appropriate kind.
4. A legal action of some inappropriate kind.
5. Etc...
Now then, some people do more appropriate things in life than others.
It is not the job of the INTERNIC or the IANA to remove the
possibilities of inappropriate behavior in this matter;-)...
Indeed, if the INTERNIC or IANA attempt to do so, they will cause more
trouble than they prevent, by giving people the inappropriate
opportunity to try to slip something past the INTERNIC/IANA
"authority" on the expectation that fogging it by them provides some
kind of legal right to use the inappropriately registered name.
I believe that one reason why it has taken more than 10 years of DNS
operation to produce the first (apparently trivial) law suit is that
there was no expectation that DNS registration provides any special
rights to anyone, except in the context of the complete body of
Intellectual Property Law.
In short, use of a name in the DNS is but one instance of documented
use of a name "in commerce", and it has nothing to do with any kind of
"sanction" that INTERNIC and IANA may have to offer. INTERNIC/IANA
registration services only guarantee unicity in the DNS, that "only
one such name is ever in use at any one time", rightly or wrongly.
If wrongly used, it is not a good idea for the challenger to have the
right to add another DNS record with a different value! The proper
remedy is to arrange for the conflicting parties to settle the issue
outside the DNS and then make the DNS records reflect the resolution,
with one, and only one, owner for each DNS name.
The only sensible policy for INTERNIC or IANA is to announce that they
take no sides, and offer no sanction, other than to guarantee the
unicity of each name in the DNS. All disputes are to be resolved
according tot the law of the land(s), and the INTERNIC/IANA only
records the results of any resolution, without any participation in
the dispute.
I trust that this will resolve this question for now...\Stef
