Who owns whitehouse.com? Should that entity now have a right to "White House" as a trademark and, in the case of this discussion, @whitehouse on Twitter, on the basis of owning that domain?
Yes, but the domain registration process is just another "registration process". The domain one is "modern" (inexpensive, online, self-service), the trademark one (USPTO) is "old" ("manual", "offline", "cumbersome", "expensive").
Why should the government get whitehouse.com - they are entitled to whitehouse.gov. Are you saying governments should have precedence over the priority of other entities?
Since we are discussing here, an international trademark system, I think the properties of the domain registration system are much preferred to the properties of the fragmented and ill-defined international trademark process.
I believe what they're trying to say is that .com is a completely arbitrary demarcation.
Are you saying that a .com should have precedence over the priority of a .org, .edu, or .co.uk? Should Harvard Book Store (harvard.com) be somehow entitled to @harvard over Harvard University (harvard.edu)?
