Snowe Bill / Industry Development Environment

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Snowe Bill / Industry Development Environment
June 19, 2008
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Discussion today

• Intellectual Property interests are pushing to
  mandate
• models of domain ownership and provision of
  services
• in a way that gives them the most possible
  latitude.
• Today
• 50,000 ft. view of their strategy
• How theyre making their approaches to make
  governing policy
• What registrants and service providers can do

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The IP Lobby

• What is Intellectual Property?
• Intellectual property refers to creations of the
  mind inventions, literary and artistic works,
  and symbols, names, images, and designs used in
  commerce.
• Why does the IP lobby care about domain names?
• Domain names are the unique representations of
  intellectual property on the Internet as we now
  experience it.

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The IP Lobby

• Then Domain name investors got out ahead of the
  IP lobby
• In the early days, domain name investors saw
  potential and invested in names faster than the
  IP interests could adapt governance rules.
• Now IP lobby is organized, leaning hard into
  domain industry
• How are they doing this?

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Organization

• The IP lobby is well organized. They have a
  long legacy --
• (INTA is 130 years old).
• Our industry is, but not as well and for not as
  long.
• CADNA
• The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, Inc.
  (CADNA), a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit corporation
  founded in 2007, is dedicated to building
  awareness about and advocating action to stop
  illegal and unethical infringement of
  brands/trademarks online. Its mission is to
  decrease instances of cybersquatting in all its
  forms by facilitating dialogue, effecting change,
  and spurring action on the part of policymakers
  in the national and international arenas.
• CADNA The IP lobby in the domain industry

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Opening multiple venues

• Congress
• Snowe Bill
• Courts
• Aggressive use of courts to dislodge domains
  (Dell, Microsoft, Verizon)
• ICANN
• Working to get control of constituencies
• Assumption of direction of BC, IP, and ISP
  Constituencies
• Opposition of GNSO reform
• Other entities
• Pushing service providers to make it harder to
  provision or monetize names

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Theyre good with PR, too

• How the IP lobby uses PR to define domain
  industry
• Intentionally inflammatory characterizations
• e.g., All domain tasting is kiting
• Tying into other issues (e.g., anti-phishing, the
  crux of the Snowe Bill) that
• effectively cant be argued against
• Use cachet of high-level companies to support the
  effort
• Unfortunately, its all too easy to find cases of
  TM abuse and use them to define
• our industry as grey or black hats

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The danger

• The clearest danger is the constriction of
  latitude in
• operations in a way that removes revenue
  potential in domain
• investing and service provision to investors.
• This is the risk for the industry.

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What to do about it

• State our intentions
• We dont want to profit from anyones legitimate
  mark. Nor do we want to
• unnecessarily give up an asset to which were
  perfectly entitled to have.
• Operate cleanly
• Good PR is the result mainly of good behavior,
  not good spin. Its important to
• stay within the rules.

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What to do about it

• Organize
• Phil does a very good job with ICA. Join that
  organization.
• Maintain ICANN position
• Be appropriately supportive of GNSO reform.

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What to do about it

• Open a dialogue
• Have discussions with CADNA or other players
  about a reasoned approach to
• issues of importance.

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Contact

• Where to reach me
• Mason Cole
• VP Corp. Communications / Industry Relations
• Oversee.net
• [phone]
• mcole_at_oversee.net