Re: New gTLDs available / how to protect the PostgreSQL brand

Jonathan,

* Jonathan S. Katz (jonathan(dot)katz(at)excoventures(dot)com) wrote:
> I agree with most of this - it is important to protect the PostgreSQL digital brand. However, I would make a notable exception for some of the commercially oriented ones (e.g. .expert .consulting) as many of the companies that provide direct support for the PostgreSQL community would be appropriately branding themselves with those names.

I'm not really a fan of this. We do own certain trademarks and if we
don't at least pretend to enforce them appropriately they could end up
being lost.

> With that said, I would not just want *any* company to purchase those names, but the PostgreSQL-focused companies that are trusted by the company. For instance, if Dalibo bought "postgresql.consulting" and decided to use it for itself, I personally would not have a problem for that given all the time and money Dalibo has given to the community.

This is the other side of that coin- it'd be quite bad for us if the
"wrong" company purchased the domain.

> However, I do have a potential compromise where I can see both sides benefitting:
>
> * Commercially focused gTLDs are initial bought by the community
> * Community holds a charitable auction among verified companies for specific domain names
> * Proceeds from auction are donated to one of the PostgreSQL nonprofits
>
> That way, we (a) protect the brand, (b) ensure that there is an appropriate representative of the PostgreSQL brand and (c) raise money that can be used for advocacy, if not development efforts.

I'd go at this a slightly different way- we'd have the domains bought by
the community, hosted on PG infrastructure, but then redirected or
published as parts of our existing website where we already have
policies and procedures for how commercial companies can be listed,
de-listed, and generally represented.

Thanks,

Stephen