[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kerry Miller) wrote:
> You provide a nice set of objections -- but not to my point, which
> addresses the fact that it has been their (a)scribability that has
> created the demand
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this.
> Without signs, there can be no symbols, any more than there can
> be a timber products industry without timber. Its very fine for
> industry to insist on its right to make paper, but if there is to be a
> global administration to 'coordinate' industry activity, do you think it
> is intra-industrial rights (e.g. who cuts which tree), or the rights of
> trees to grow in the first place (i.e. in the public domain), which
> need to be coordinated ('protected') *in the face of* such activity?
As this relates to domain names, I don't really have an opinion. I
use them to access resources on the net. Others buy and sell them. I
guess they have their reasons. If you want this not to be an issue,
you have to convince the people who buy and sell domain names not to
do that any more.
> But which is more likely 'sustainable practice' in namespace -- the
> reliance on old-growth resources of meaningfulness, or the strength
> and determination to *make a name meaningful by the service one
> provides at the site it identifies? Quality, reliability, consistency
> are not just trademarks, you know. And no focus group suggested
> to Philips Petroleum Corp that a flying red horse was a natural
> embodiment of those attributes.
The Internet is just like anything else, where people will take an
opportunity to make a quick buck if given the opportunity. They see
an unclaimed name that someone else might want sometime later and buy
it. Get people not to do that any more and it won't be an issue.
--gregbo
