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TIP:  0004
Title:  Premium names and name squatting prevention
Authors: Josep Rosich <[email protected]>
Status: Draft
Type: Informational
Created: 2018-07-23

Abstract

This proposal defines some guidelines to improve how account names are created in Telos, and what we can do to prevent impersonating and provide trademark protection.

Motivation

Name squatting already happened on EOS main net during the first minutes of launch process when a few BPs got their names registered by someone else. Now there is a case of impersonating a BP account (Cryptolions) that is used for a scam and EOS main net is unable to do anything to fix it. Many users/companies are interested in buy affordable premium names, with less than 12 characters.

Rationale

  1. There is no trademark/name/domain protection on EOS main net.
  2. There is no process to claim a squatted name account.
  3. Premium names are part of a bidding process but only 1 a day is released. That means many names will never be released.
  4. There is no mechanism to buy vanity names.

Specification

  1. Arbitration in name squatting cases. TF should be able to transfer squatted account names to legal trademark or internet domain holder.
  2. TLD domains (.com,.net,.org...etc) should be controlled by TF and accounts using it can be sold like any other internet domain.
  3. Premium and vanity names: any user should be able to buy premium names (6-11 characters).
  4. All name purchases should be paid in TLOS and should be handled by smart contracts.
  5. Premium names may be granted before main net activation to individuals, BPs, DAPPs and Exchanges involved in launch process. This process must be open to everyone.

Name prices

  1. TLD: 100 TLOS* (any .com, .net, .org, etc... subdomain). Can be freely bought but account owner must be rquired to prove copyright/trademark ownership. First-come, first-served.
  2. Premium names-vanity names, brand Names/trademark (max 6-12 characters): 100 TLOS*
  3. High Value names: (3-5 characters): to be decided (10,000 TLOS*)

*All prices are subject to change. This is only a proposal.

Special names

  1. BPs in launching group will be able to reserve up to 5 names related to its brand and projects they sponsor before main net open to public.
  2. DAPPs committed to launch in Telos main net during the first 3 months will have 5 free account names (TLD or/and Names/trademark) as part of the Telos DAPPs Welcome Pack. All names can be reserved before main net is open. This should be advertised in advance across the media channels, and added to Telos selling points.

What to do with Fees from name selling?

  1. Burn them all (reducing inflation)
  2. Distribute among staked users generating passive income
  3. Create a fund for DAPPs grants
  4. Use them for Workers Proposals
  5. Create an insurance fund for stolen/hacked accounts

In my opinion, we either should burn them all or distribute among staked users for passive income. The insurance fund for stolen/hacked accounts is also something we should consider.

Special cases

  1. b1 name account should be preserved
  2. There must be a Telos Foundation account.
  3. Block Producers account names from EOS Main Net must be preserved if the BP requires it. We should reach them with the offer. This does not imply any support to Telos but we do want to prevent impersonation. We must protect those names (see Cryptolions impersonation/scam account on main net for example).

Copyright

This document is placed in the public domain.

Discussion

The area below is for recording comments. Please add your name and thoughts. These will help develop the document and will be preserveed historically, but will not be included in the final document.

Douglas Horn:

I have been putting a lot of thought into this recently and was planning a position paper once I got through all the really crucial stuff.

Let's first remember that even though all of us are working hard to build Telos, none of us have any special rights or priveledges on it. So the concept of reserving names must be in the context.

Motivation: We can address the squatting of BP names as I discuss below under Special Cases 3.

Rationale:

  1. Trademark does not apply to account names at all.
  2. Other than the concept of BP names, I don't believe there's any such thing as a squatted name on Telos. Only Members have ANY rights whatsoever on the Telos Network and mo Member has a right to any specific combination of 12 letters + 1-5 (BPs don't either, but we'll address it as part of avoiding voter confusion).
  3. The EOS 1 premium name per day rule feels ridiculous to me. There should instead be an amount of time that each proposed premium name should be on offer once proposed--a length of time that gets shorter the higher the value goes. At a certain price level, there needs to be a new bid every minute, or the auction ends. By the way, these do vastly favor the early adopters (as everything in blockchain tends to and which serves as an incentive to early engagement.)
  4. A mechanism for buying vanity names is good. I agree that we should develop this.There's a lot of space between premium names and regular names. Lots of good 8-character names to be had. I support this and think we should get on it, though it is not a launch requirement.

Regarding trademarks, I don't think they apply or are something we should seek to honor. Trademarks vary country to country. Honoriog tradmarks mean we will be asked to decide which country's should take precdidence. Even within one country, Trademarks can be granted to multiple companies under the same name as long as they are in different categories. Consider Amazon Canoes is excited about joining Telos and that they have the TM for Amazon as it applies to canoes. If they are excited about telos and want to register AmazonTelos1 how do they have less right to it than Amazon.com? What if there's some girl who everyone calls "Amazon" because she's an amazing MMA fighter - not famous, but someday, who knows. And she loves telos too! Can She be telosamazon1, or do we have to just save those for companies with trademarks? Because all that smells to me like the big guys having some (more) special priveledges over the little guys. There is a reason why ICANN abandoned trying to adjudicate exactly this matter: it's not possible. We can only embrace first come, first served. It's the only way that works. Trademarks are only about preventing purchaser confusion, nothing else. There is nothing in Trademark law that confers any rights whatsoever to a specific username. Who even knows what Amazon.com might pick, the possibilities are endless. Do we have to protect anything they might possibly want? I say no. The people who engage with Telos earlier get the advantages of an unclaimed landscape and that includes the free names. At least to my way of thinking.

Specification

  1. There's nothing that establishes anyone has any special right to a specific 12-digit name. Let's not gum up arbitration with this.
  2. This gives the TF a new role that's never been discussed before. We should talk about it.
  3. If any character can buy these names, what if they buy something another feels is squatted? Can they arbitrate, even though the name was sold?
  4. 3-5 character names - aren't these the ones that we are proposing auctioning?
  5. I disagree with pre-access to the blockchain for names. Let's keep the genesis as clean as possible.

Name Prices:

  1. See my thoughts on the quagmire that will be the proving ownership process. (Plus, who is volunteering to do this work?)
  2. General premium vanity names (6-11 characters -- 12 characters are free) Yes, this is good and I support it. But understand that if we let people buy these, it's just another first come, first served situation. Why would we sweat to proactively reserve amazontelos1 and just let anyone buy amazoncom for 100 TLOS?

What to do with fees: I think burning is kind of a waste. Burning and distributing 'dividends' both equally distribute the value to owners. From a tax standpoint, burning is actually less hassle than distributing, but it's mostly invisible, whereas people love getting distributions. It keeps more value in the coin. Alternatively, we can just send them to worker proposals where the voters could decide to use, burn, or distribute dividends.

Special names:

  1. Reserving a specific list of names to avoid voter confusion for BPs is different than letting each TLG contributor get a free list of 5 names they would like. That would constitute a special priveledge that non-members don't have. We want to limit these. Frankly we all haev a big advantage in that we are on the network early and can quickly create a lot of accounts on Telos before many squatters roll in. That is just playing by the same rules as everyone else.
  2. I don't think we'll have any DApps commit until we launch. Let them grab the names they like. It will be an incentive to get involved early.

Special cases:

  1. b1 account name will already be preserved by the genesis snapshot.
  2. The Telos Foundation will have an account created on the Telos genesis to hold its reserved tokens.
  3. The The RegProducer contract includes terms making running a misleading BP name cause for being unregistered. In that we do extend the courtesy to any BPs registered on the EOS blockchain in the first 30 days. I think that in the name of reducing voter confusion, we could create a pool of these names and assign them 1 TLOS each to hold them for claiming in the future. We can allow any existing BPs to opt out of the list and grab their own names immediately instead. I don't want to violate the genesis snapshot.

The only reason we would ever try to arbitrate an account name from a person who registered it is that it has some value. Therefore, taking it away from someone who got there first is taking value from them without cause. I don't think we stand for that as a network.