>>Also, in response to Martin Schwimmer:
>>
>>>In other words, if you added .inc, .ltd., .firm, .shop and .store
>>>tomorrow, then anonymous folks could tomorrow register ebay.inc,
>>>ebay.ltd, ebay.firm, ebay.shop and ebay.store, all of which, in my
>>>humble but professional opinion, are likely to create confusion with
>>>our friends over at ebay.com.
>>
>>This seems to be a reasonable concern, given that there is already
>>quite a bit of registration of companies in ccTLDs. Wouldn't the
>>companies who are interested in having those names in all (or even
>>most) TLDs pursue the same avenues they are pursuing in the existing
>>gTLDs?
>>
>>--gregbo
>
If I understand your question correctly:
TM owners are utilizing services like netnames or namestake to obtain as
many ccTLD versions of their TMs as they can reasonably afford, although it
adds up - especially since a company may need to acquire several names in a
particular ccTLD (because of reserved second level DNs (i.e. .co.jp). But
that's just for one trademark. Many companies have more than one trademark
or trading name they may wish to protect. And if the company's trademark
consists of two words and they have to worry about variants
(pizzahut.co.jp, pizza-hut.co.jp, pizzahut.jp, pizza-hut.jp) a block-out
strategy becomes economically impossible for all but the largest companies.
(note the irony that an original appeal of a gTLD was that you only needed
one name and anybody in the world could get in touch with you).
So if there was a huge number of undifferentiated gTLDS requiring
registration of pizzahut.firm, pizza-hut.firm, etc., well, let's put it one
way. Pizza Hut would likely oppose such a scenario and you couldn't
criticize them for not putting ORSC's interests first. (p.s. The views
expressed herein are not necessarily those of Pizza Hut, which was the
first well known two word trademark I could think of. When in New York,
you may wish to try pizza at John's, with locations on Bleeker Street in
the Village and one on the West Side off Columbus).
