icann opening up of tld's

[Geoffrey Goodell]

On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 09:35:36PM -0400, krishna e bera wrote:
> According to the announcement: "Trademarks will not be automatically
> reserved.  But there will be an objection-based mechanism for
> trademark owners where their arguments for protection will be
> considered."
> 
> How expensive or practical is it to trademark .onion for purposes of
> the Tor network?
> 
> "There will be a limited application period where any established
> entity from anywhere in the world can submit an application that will
> go through an evaluation process."
> 
> Is an application to ICANN being considered?  The Tor project and
> network is a well established entity, having an office etc and
> thousands of relay nodes (by next year).

My understanding is that ICANN will not start taking applications until
next year anyway.  Supposedly the cost of a gTLD will be in the USD
$100k+ range.

I think that the central question for Tor at this moment is the tradeoff
between the long-term value of purchasing a gTLD and the long-term value
of spending the USD $100k on Tor development.  Given the amount of Tor
development work that needs to be done, I am inclined to think that Tor
should not spend its money this way.  Perhaps some nice fellow will
donate a gTLD instead.

Geoff

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