back to article France frostily foists flat fizz fear on ICANN's .wine plans

Wine vendors are fighting against ICANN's plans to introduce .wine and .vin top level domain names. During a packed government advisory meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in London on Monday morning, France's minister for digital affairs Axelle Lemaire told delegates that her country was opposed …

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  1. Velv
    Big Brother

    Just goes to show how ill-conceived the whole non-geographical TLD piece was. And I mean all of it, .com, .org, .everythingthatsnotacountry. And no, the Merkins don't own it.

    Many recent cases have raised questions over jurisdiction and pinning domain names to a country is one way to help clarify responsibilities.

    Until we live on a borderless planet we are stuck with virtual borders as well as physical.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      TLD's ill-conceived?

      At $185,000 a pop plus annual renewal and fees per subdomain registration, champagne corks were flying in Playa Vista. With this particular spat, Americans will potentially own .vin and .wine via Donuts who registered these plus a few hundred TLDs. The argument seems to be about whether they're appropriate to manage the wine industry's online presence. Donut's model is simple:

      "Brand owners can add their trademark-related terms into the DPML and have them blocked from registration at the second level in all Donuts-top-level domains (Donuts TLDs). DPML protects trademarks holders against cybersquatting at a fraction of what it would cost to defensively register the terms in Donuts TLDs."

      Assuming you've paid $150 a year to the "Trademarks Clearing House" to register your trademark, you can then register your TM with Donuts for 'protection' (a higher fee if it's a premium brand) or pay more to register the domain. And if you don't pay, it may get cybersquatted. Naturally there are some concerns about these proposals, especially when some of the things parts of the industry want to protect aren't trademarks. Especially when things like champagne aren't always trademarks, and the US wine industry has long wanted to be able to produce domestic champagne rather than just sparkling wine.

    2. harmjschoonhoven

      Re: .everythingthatsnotacountry

      What about country-codes .do, .mu, .nu, .tv?

      https://www.any.do/,

      http://muse.mu/,

      http://lookbook.nu/,

      http://www.heldenvan.nu/,

      http://blip.tv/,

      http://fora.tv/,

      and last but not least http://www.nederland.tv/info/domainnames.htm .

  2. Yag
    WTF?

    mmmh...

    I really should register gTLDs .whine and .bullshit...

    But all politicians in the world will just complain that I threaten their desire to "preserve their cultural diversity"

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: mmmh...

      I really should register gTLDs ... .bullshit...

      The Bahamas already got there with .bs

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Concerns about miscreants selling fake fizz using a top-level domain suffix like .champagne is one of the main reasons why the French government has mounted such a strong opposition"

    A) What planet do these fantasists live on?

    B) Even if that worry was remotely credible are they honestly saying that the hugely rich champagne producing companies couldn't piss in a pot and buy a TLD?

    1. Captain Scarlet
      Facepalm

      reallygoodwine.eu

      Yeah its not like any other TLD could be used to peddle fake wine

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well 'champagne' probably can afford to buy it's tld, but maybe 'Vin de pays de little valley in the loire' might find it harder to raise the cash. As far as I can see all the wine producers are asking is that the new TLD respect the existing rules for naming wine. But hey, its 'free markets' - so registering 'Bergerac' to ITV and using it to sell VAT free anti-freeze imported via the channel islands is for your own good!

      1. Yes Me Silver badge
        WTF?

        respect the existing rules for naming wine

        Why does anybody, including even the dumbest French politician or fonctionnaire, imagine that any court judging a trademark or appellation violation would see any distinction whatever between misusing (say) champagne.com, champagne.fr, champagne.vin, champagne.wine, or for that matter champagne.xxx?

        These new gTLDs are idiotic, but they don't change intellectual property law.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Even if that worry was remotely credible are they honestly saying that the hugely rich champagne producing companies couldn't piss in a pot and buy a TLD?"

      That rather misses the point - why should those companies have to buy the TLD, when it isn't needed and isn't wanted? It was bad enough when cybersquatting became a problem in the original TLDs, but making more TLDs isn't solving that problem, it's just making it worse!

    4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      What planet do these fantasists live on?

      The same planet as the downvoters. I don't know how any of this makes any sense whatsoever. I always buy wine from an actual shop, preferably during a show & taste extravaganza.

      And I got to say, not many french wines excite me.

  4. Hollerith 1

    Some things useful, most not

    I could see the point of .xxx, but never got why anyone would use .museum or .aero or the trillion others being pumped out. Living in London, I see adverts all over for .london, but to me these are not useful and often become mild extortion: 'Wouldn't want some slimebag to take a variation of your name, now would you, squire? Why not buy .uncle and .tom and .cobbley and .all and be safe?'

    1. Tom 260

      Re: Some things useful, most not

      The whole thing seems to have gone out of control, and is indeed fading away from relevancy in modern usage anyway (beyond the blackmailing both of trademarks and smaller businesses).

      People are used to typing out a .com/.country address (if its not already bookmarked), or they google/engine of your choice it, or follow a shortened url from a twitter/myface post, and if they are looking at a paper advert with a funny tld url, they'll scan the QR code rather than type out a full domain, not forgetting the apps that work in conjunction with TV adverts too - none of which matter what tld you are using.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Some things useful, most not

      Aero made some sense, in that there is a defined and tightly regulated list of airport codes, and I see to recall that lgw.aero and lhr.aero once pointed to the relevant airport websites, though that doesn't seem to work any more (I don't know if SITA set those cnames up, but on balance it's unlikely - SITA aren't renowned for that kind of foresight!)

      I don't see a problem with domains for well defined international organizations, as long as there aren't competing claims for a single title - so .fifa would be OK, but .football wouldn't.

      There isn't a single overall authority that could reasonably lay claim to .vin or .wine, so it's simply a landgrab, with a guaranteed income from established companies who will be blackmailed into paying for protection from cybersquatting.

  5. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
    Trollface

    dibs on....

    www.new.beaujolais.plonk and www.french.chablis.catspiss

  6. M7S
    Pint

    To placate the Frenchies, why not give them tld with English spelling, free

    perhaps with an h inserted as the second letter.

    Icon, in the spirit of the TV adverts that Rik Mayall did not long ago

  7. Frankee Llonnygog

    These new TLDs are extortion

    Protect your trademarks - or else! And - why no .pirate TLD?

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Facepalm

    VICANN50!

    Shurely the practice of extreme shark jumping has now reached the level marked "biblical" in a fat felt marker pen?

    If the saleability of french wines du terroir (not to be confused with terreur) is actually dependent on the non-existence of new top-level domains, however ill-advised these may be, better dump that shit into the french campagne.

  9. earl grey
    Trollface

    wines du terroir ??/

    I think you mean wines du terrior.

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. NogginTheNog

    What next?

    .burger?

    .newcar?

    .bogroll?

    .whoelsecanwefleeceforafewbucks?

    .whoelsecanwefleeceforafewquid?

    .whoelsecanwefleeceforafewyuan?

  12. David Pollard

    Steelie Neelie claims "public interest"

    The benefits of increased competition, so often touted as a reason to support the European dream, are rather swiftly ignored as soon as there is even a mild threat to profits.

    But would sales of wine really be affected by a change of domain name suffix? Do many people even notice what a site's URL when they have put [wine], or whatever, into Google Shopping? And wouldn't the serious producers be using .fr or .it etc., or .com, in any case, while the serious buyers would mostly be going on the basis of reputation.

    1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Re: Steelie Neelie claims "public interest"

      >the serious buyers would mostly be going on the basis of reputation.

      The serious buyers would mostly be going to the physical winery on the basis of reputation.

      FTFY

  13. Herby
    Coat

    You ask: What next??

    This is a simple question to answer:

    .stupid

    Gone in 60 seconds!

  14. Notrub
    Joke

    It's not like the French to start wining about stuff.

    1. Lars Silver badge
      Joke

      @Notrub

      "It's not like the French to start wining about stuff." I suppose so too, being modest must be the reason they are damned good at space technology, airplanes, nuclear technology, fast trains, cars, ships, large and small, medicare, good food, freedom fries, clean cities, clean teeth and nails. It's amazing how much you can achieve by modesty.

  15. Richard Cranium

    I just don't get why anyone would want a gTLD. For example why would UK supermarket Tesco buy tesco.shop? It's a well known name, everyone knows it's a shop tesco.co.uk at least tells people it's a UK shop (they do have shops elsewhere with relevant country TLDs). co.uk means its (very probably) a UK company, that implies governed by UK law, prices in GBP, local shipping (no high international shipping costs or complications with taxes and customs duty). Were I to buy the tesco.shop domain (hypothetically, I expect Tesco will have got there first) I'd expect to hear from their lawyers soon after. I had a domain name which included the word technik, Panasonic's lawyers wrote to me claiming that the similarity with their brand name techniks would be an issue potentially causing confusion and diluting their brand.

    As far as I can see the only beneficiaries of gTLDs are domain name registrars and scammers (same thing?)

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