More and more companies are giving themselves generic names and then claiming they have a right to the domain name that would have been already purchased. If I was to open up a pizza company called ChicagoPizza.com today I shouldn’t have the right to try to get the domains that would be associated with it. In addition to this I don’t agree with Boston Pizza having the right to say that all domains associated with its brand are automatically theirs.

It gives Boston Pizza a permanent advantage on search engines and direct type in traffic for people that would type it in without even knowing the brand in search engines for a pizza in the Boston area.

I know there have been a lot of people on this forum that don’t really thing the domain .TEL has a chance but in Vancouver there has been a lot of companies that are already using and advertising these domain names. Bottom line a company can have one up and running in 20 minutes and advertise the next day with it. There is also a wave of new applications being built for this domain such as http://www.HornetHub.com making it easy for people to access these domains directly on their phone.

Many companies didn’t buy their .TEL domain name and if this domain takes off under new cool applications for it, you can guarantee that the number of UDRP cases is going to skyrocket.

The rules for generic domains should be fair game in my opinion.

ICANN was infiltrated by corporate-friendly IP attorneys very early on in the process, and they were the flag bearers for the shut-out of the attempt to get a Registrant’s Constituency approved in the late 90′s. Many of these same people were awarded with positions of power at ICANN for their sterling effort and ensuring registrants have no voice.

The ONLY way anything is going to change any time soon is if Registrants abandon their attempts to deal direct with ICANN (which have had very little effect over the last decade), and spend their time lobbying the organisation that is charged with protecting citizens from over-zealous corporations – their own governments.

May I suggest that a group of concerned and interested Registrants from multiple countries get together with the very capable ethical IP Attorneys that have been mentioned in this article (and a couple of others) and gather up the firm evidence of Registrants being denied their rights in UDRP proceedings, and present them in a presentation to the GAC (Government Advisory Committee) of ICANN, copied to the appropriate people at USDOJ.

GAC representatives have already said that they would welcome such a presentation and have suggested that it is very hard for them to push for Registrants rights until said Registrants present evidence of wrongdoing.

I put my hand up to help this effort. Who else will?